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MANUAL OF ^^^ 

AMERICAN LITERATURE: 



BY 



JOHN S. HART, LL.D., 

raOFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE 

COU.£fi£ Of «EW JERSEY, AND LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE NEW JERSEY 

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 




q^^.^^ 



PHILADELPHIA: 
ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 

No. 17 North Seventh Street. 

1873. 



STANDARD EDUCATIONAL WORKS: 

BY 

JOHN S. HART, LL.D. 

First Lessons in Composition. 

Composition and Ehetoiic. 

English Literature. 

American Literature. 

A Short Course in Literature. In Preparation. 



-Si- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by (t 

ELDREDGE & BROTHER, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



X^ 




^^ J. FAGAN & SON, *^% 

ELECTEOTTPERS, PHILAD'A. ^^ 

^ ^,.^ r— V^ 




9 
CAXTON PRESS OF SHERMAN & CO. 




^ 



r: Preface 



npHE systematic study of English Literature, as part of the course of 
ordinary English education, has been introduced almost entirely within 
the last thirty years. 

The reader who will take the trouble to look over the old catalogues of 
our Colleges and Schools, will find no vestige of such a study prior to 
1844. The Class Book of Poetry and the Class Book of Prose, issued in 
1844, by the author of the present volume, were a feeble begmning in this 
line. Though intended primarily for reading-books, they were to some 
extent studies in literature. The selections from the various authors were in 
each case prefixed by a brief critical and biographical notice of the author, 
and were arranged in chronological order, so as to furnish the teacher and 
the scholar with something like an outline of the general course of English 
Literature. 

In the works of Prof. Cleveland which followed, a few years later (1848- 
1858), this feature became more marked. The books were still in the main 
reading-books, but the space allotted to literary history and criticism was 
considerably enlarged. 

Other works have followed, from time to time, approaching more and 
more to the character of a simple text-book on the subject, until now, 
when selections are for the most part remanded to the reading-book, and 
the text-book is occupied almost exclusively with criticism and literary 
history. 

Any one who will compare the Class Books of Poetry and Prose of 1844, 
already referred to, with the present volumes on English and American 
Literature, by the same author, will have a means of measuring the growth 
of this study in a single generation. A comparison of the School cata- 



Vlll 



PREFACE. 



logues of 1844 and 1872 will show a like result. Hardly a school of any 
standing is now to be found that does not include the systematic study of 
English Literature in its ordinary curriculum. The study has come to he 
considered almost as necessary as that of Grammar and Geography, and 
fully as necessary as that of History. The study of Literature is in fact a 
part of the study of History. 

The latest step in this onward movement is that which recognizes the 
propriety of giving a full and adequate treatment to the literature of our 
own country. The volume now in the hands of the reader furnishes ample 
proof, if any were needed, that American Literature is abundant in mate- 
rials, and that it is growing with unexampled rapidity. 

In preparing this work the author has been indebted, at every step, to 
those who have gone before him. No one can write intelligently on the 
subject, without a feeling of thankfulness for the labors of Dr. Allibone, 
Dr. Griswold, and the brothers Duyckinck. Besides these general sources 
of information, the author acknowledges with pleasure his obligations to 
" Southland Writers," by Mrs. Mary T. Tardy (" Ida Eaymond ") of Mobile, 
Ala., and to " Living Writers of the South," by Prof. James Wood David- 
son of Washington. 

The work, however, is not a mere compilation. It is not only original in 
its conception, form, and structure, but it has, in its materials also, to a 
much greater extent than is usual in such works, the character of origi- 
nality. Fully one-third of the matter here presented has been gathered by 
the author himself and is an original contribution to the subject of which 
he has undertaken to treat. 



J. S. H. 



College of New Jerset, Princeton, August, 1872. 





PAGE 

PREFACE, 7 

TO TEACHERS, 23 

CHAPTER I. 
The Early Colonial Period. 

Introductory Remarks, . , . . . . . . . .25 

TVhitaker's Good Newes, Sandys's Ovid, ....... 26 

Vaughan's Golden Fleece, ......... 27 

Morrell's Nova Anglia, Wood's New England's Prospect, .... 28 

The First Printing Press, The Bay Psalm Book, . . . . . .29 

Nathaniel Ward, " The Cobbler of Agawam," ...... 30 

John Cotton, 31 

Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, ........ 32 

John Norton, Thomas Shepard, . . . . . . . .33 

Governor Winthrop, Governor Bradford, Thomas litartin, .... 34 

Nathaniel Martin, .......... 35 

Governor Winslow, Roger Williams, ....... 36 

President Chauncy, John Clark, John Davenport, . . . . . .37 

John Eliot, The Indian Bible, ........ 38 

Richard Mather, Daniel Gookin, Roger Clap, Edward Johnson, William Hubbard, . 39 
Anne Bradstreet, .......... 40 

Peter Folger, Michael Wigglesworth, . . . . . , . .41 

Samuel Willard, Joshua Mather, ........ 42 

Cotton Mather, 43 

Minor Authors, .......... 45 

President Blair, Colonel William Byrd, . . . . . . .46 

James Logan, Robert Beverly, ........ 48 

Thomas Chalkley, ........... 49 

John Woolman, Aquila Rose, ........ 50 

Samuel Keimer, Cadwallader Golden, Thomas Prince, Samuel Mather, Solomon Stod- 
dard, 51 

Samuel Johnson, John Seccomb, Father Abbey's Will, ..... 52 

President Clap, John Callender, James and Ebenezer Farell, C. Chauncy, . . 53 

Presidents Dickinson, Burr, and Edwards, ...... 54 

Presidents Davies and Finley, . . . . . . . . .56 

ix 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 
The Revolutionary Period. 

PAflB 
Introductory Remarks, .......... 57 

Benjamin Franklin, .......... 58 

Apothegms from Franklin, . . . . . . . . .60 

George Washington, James Otis, ........ 62 

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, . . ... . . « .63 

Madison, . . . . . . . . . . .65 

Monroe, . . . . . . . . . . . .66 

Alexander Hamilton, .......... 67 

John Jay, Dr. Witherspoon, . . . . . . . . .69 

Rivington, . . . . . . . . . . .70 

Freneau— The Sabbath-Day Class, ........ 71 

Freneau's May to April, ......... 73 

Brackenridge, ......... i . Ti 

Francis Hopkinson, .......... 75 

The Battle of the Kegs, .......... 76 

John Trumbull, Joel Barlow, ........ 77 

Presidents Stiles and Dwight, ......... 78 

Mather Byles, Jacob Duche, Samuel Curwen, ...... 80" 

Joseph Green, . . . . . . . . • . .81 

Samuel Peters, . . . . . . . . . . . 82 

The Frogs of Windam, B. Young Prince, . . . . . . .83 

Governors Livingston and Hutchinson, Charles Thomson, . . . .84 

Fisher Ames, John Winthrop, Benjamin Rush, . . . . . .85 

John Dickinson, Anthony Benezet, Thomas Godfrey, Pelatiah Webster, . . 86 

David Ramsey, Joseph Reed, W. H. Drayton, J. Drayton, . . . . .87 

Henry Lee, Arthur Lee, Josiah Quincy, James Sullivan, David Humphreys, Bishop 

White, ............ 88 

Jonathan Mayhew, Bishop Seabury, William Smith, ..... 89 

Samuel Hopkins, Jeremiah Learning, Nathan Strong, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., . . 90 

Phillis Wheatly, J. Belknap, Isaac Backus, E. Winchester, J. Heckelwelder, Mrs. Fer- 
guson, ............ 91 

Susanna Rowson, Mercy Warren, St. George Tucker, ..... 92 

J. McClurg, The Belles of Williamsburg, . . . . . . .93 

J. M. Sewell, E. Fitch, N, Evans, B. Church, J. and W. Bartram, ... 94 

Elias Boudinot, W. Linn, G. R. Minot, J. Bellamy, . . .95 

CHAPTER III. ^ 
From 1800 to 1830. 

Introductory Remarks, . . . . . . . . . .96 

SECTION 1.— The Poets. 

Robert Treat Paine, 97 

Adams and Liberty — A Song, ........ 98 

Fessenden, . . . . . . . . . . . ' . 99 

J. Hopkinson, J. B. Linn, C. P. Sumner, Francis S. Key, Wm. Mumford, . . 100 

W. AUston, C. C. Moore, 101 

A Tisit from St. Nicholas 102 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

Dinsmore, R. Alsop, . . . . . . . . . .103 

Levi Frisbie, Samuel Woodworth, ........ 104 

Old Oaken Bucket, Hillhouse, B. Wain, , . . . . . .105 

J. Rodman Drake, R. Dabney, J. M. Harvey, ...... 106 

The American Flag, . . . . . . . . . . 107 

Robert C. Sands, C. Wilcox, J. G. C. Brainard, G. Mellen, . . . .108 

Maria del Occidents (Mrs. Brooks), J. W. Eastburn, M. P. Flint, J. A. Stone, F. E. Brooks, 109 
Lucretia and Margaret Davidson, . . . * . . . . 110 

SECTION 2. — Miscellaneous Prose Writers. 

Charles Brockden Brown, ......... Ill 

Robert Walsh, Joseph Dennie, ........ 112 

William Wirt, W. Duane, Mrs. E. Hall, P. H. Nicklin, . ... . .113 

The Blind Preacher, .......... 114 

William Dunlap, W. Crafts, W. Elliott, S. L. Mitchill, A. Greene, . . . .115 

Irving Brothers, Mrs. T. Tenney, Lucy Hooper, R. Tyler, H. E. Dwight, E. Wood, G. 
Watterston, E. B. English, . . . . , . . . .116 

Timothy Flint, Captain Symmes, ........ 117 

SECTION 3. — Scientific \Vriters. 

Wilson the Ornithologist, . . . . . •• . . . 117 

The Mocking Bird, 118 

The Bald Eagle, .119 

Audubon, . . . . . . . . . . .120 

The Humming Bird, .......... 121 

Duponceau, Noah Webster, ......... 122 

Pickering, Leverett, Godman, ......... 123 

SECTION IV. — Writers on Political Economy. 

Matthew Carey, ........... 123 

Albert Gallatin, T. Coxe, W. M. Gouge, C. Raguet, R. Vaux, C. W. Peale, . . 124 

Dr. Cooper, Alex. R. Johnson, . . . * . . . . . . 125 

SECTION v. — Legal and Political Writers. 

Chancellor Kent, ........... 125 

Judge Story, ........... 126 

H. G. Otis, J. Sullivan, T. A. Emmet, W. Rawle, A. J. Dallas, H. N. Brackinridge, 
J. Taylor, 127 

SECTION VI. — Biography and History. 

Chief Justice Marshall, Weems, Aaron Bancroft, Abdiel Holmes, .... 128 

Hannah Adams, S. L. Knapp, T. M. Harris, ...... 129 

T. Pitkins, A. Bradford, J. B. Felt, A. Graydon, C. Miner, J. Armstrong, J. L. Bosman, 130 
Isaiah Thomas, J. Morse, W. C. Woodbridge, R. C. Smith, .... 131 

SECTION VII. — Theological Writers. 

Samuel Stanhope Smith, . , . . . . . . . 131 

Ashbel Green, H. Kollock, S. Kollock, . . . . . . .132 

Dr. John Mason, Dr. J. H. Rice, . . . . . . . .133 

Dr. Nott, T. C. Henry, A. M. Proudfit, A. McLeod, S. B. Wylie, . . .134 

President Day, J. P. Wilson, S. Whelpley, J. Mitchell, L. Withington, Dr. Emmons, . 135 
Leonard Woods, S. West, S. Williston, E. Porter, ..... 136 

Bishop Hobart, Bishop Griswold, N. Worcester, S. Worcester, Dr. Pay son, . . 137 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAGU! 
Dr. Ware, J, Bowden, G. P. Bedell, T. Dehon, F. Dalcho, J. Sherman, S. C. Thacher, 

J. Tuckerman, .......... 138 

Dr. Bangs, B. Whitman, W. Austin, A. Abbot, J. Summerfield, E. Hicks, D. Wheeler, 139 



CHAPTER IV. 
From 1830 to 1850. 

Introductory Remarks, .......... 140 

SECTION I.— The Poets. 

Poe, . 140 

The Bells, 142 

Halleck, 144 

Marco Bozzaris, . . . . . . . . . . 145 

Richard Henry Dana, .......... 147 

Edmund Kean's Lear, . . . . . . . . . 148 

Pierpont, . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 

Percival, J. Howard Payne, ........ 151 

Charles Sprague, ........... 152 

Fairfield, J. H. Bryant, ......... 153 

Gallagher, McDonald Clarke, Finley, Cranch, Eastman, J. Brown, . , . 154 

Hosmer, C. W. Everett, H. B. Hirst, George Lunt, . . . . .155 

J. McClellan, J. Nack, R. Hoyt, J. M. Legar^, Coates Kinney, . . . .156 

T. H. Stockton, T. Ward, J. W. Ward, 157 

Mrs. Osgood, To My Pen, . . . . . . . . .158 

Hannah F. Gould, The Snow Flake, . . . . . . .160 

Elizabeth Bogart, ........... 161 

Anna Drinker, " Edith May," ........ 162 

Mrs. Esling, Mary A. H. Dodd, Mrs. L. J. Hall, 164 

Amelia Welby, Mrs. Jane L. Gray, Mrs. Nichols, Sirs. Gage, Mrs. E. Lee, . . 165 

Mrs. Shindler (late Mrs. Dana), . . . . . . . .166 

SECTION II. — Writers of Novels, Tales, etc. 

Cooper, ............ 168 

The Panther Scene, .......... 169 

Miss Sedgwick, Susan Fenimore Cooper, ....... 170 

Miss Mcintosh, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick, John P. Kennedy, . . 174 

James K. Paulding, .......... 175 

Randolph of Roanoke, ......... 176 

Quarrel of Bull and Jonathan, ........ 177 

John Sanderson, . . . . . . . , . , 178 

Joseph C. Neal, . . . . . . , . . . , 180 

John Neal, 183 

Charles Fenno Hoffman, .......... 184 

Willis, 185 

George P. Morris, ........... 187 

P. M. Wetmore, T. S. Fay, ......... 189 

J. Hall, F. S. Cozzens, R. P. Smith, R. T. Conrad, . . . . . .190 

J. R. Orton, W. S. Mayo, L. Osborne, R. H. Wilde, . . . . .191 

H. W. Herbert, C. W. Webber, 192 

B. Tefft, A. W. Thatcher, A. Pike, P. Miles, E. Flagg, J. H. Ingraham, J. B. Jones, 193 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

PAGE 

J. Judd, J. A. Scoville, H. Wikoff, W. C. Wallace, C. W. Thompson, W. J. Snelling, E. 

Maturin, C. Matthews, ......... 194 

G. Lippard, W. A. Cairuthers, G. H. Calvert, W. E. Burton, C. Burdett, A. S. Roe, J. 

Very, F. W. Thomas, . . . . . . . . .195 

L. F. Thomas, M. M. Thomas, E. S. Thomas, T. H. Shreve, F. C. Woodworth, L. M. 

Sargent, S. M. Schmucker, . . . . . . . . 196 

Daniel P. Thompson, Miss Leslie, ........ 197 

Mrs. Kirkland, . . . . . . . . . . 200 

Lydia Maria Child, . . . . ... . . . 203 

Mrs. Emily Judson, " Fanny Forrester," . . . . . . . 205 

Mrs. Alice B. Haven, . . . . . . . . . .207 

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, Mrs. Embury, . . . « • . • . 208 

Mrs. F. M. Whitaker, Mrs. Horsford, Mrs. S. C. Mayo, Mrs. J. H. Scott, Mrs. M. E. 

Hewitt, Susan Pindar, Mrs. L. Payson, Mrs. E. H. Whitman, . . . 209 

Mrs. L. J. Pierson, Mrs. S. L. Little, Mrs. J. L. Dumont, Mrs. H. F. Lee, Mrs. Eliza Lee, 210 

SECTION III. — History and Biography. 

Washington Irving, .......... 210 

Jared Sparks, .......... 212 

J. G. Palfrey, Miss Palfrey, Rev. C. Francis, John W. Francis, C. S. Henry, . . 213 

William L. Stone, W. L. Stone, Jr., F. Hunt, M. L. Davis, . . . .214 

G. Thorburn, C. J. lugersoU, H. D. Gilpin, R. S. Field, . . . . .215 

W. C. Rives, S. M. Janney, A. S. MacKenzie, J. C. Fremont, C. S. Eastman, Mrs. 

Eastman, ........... 216 

L. Sabine, G. W. Kendall, C. E. A. Guyarre, B. Mayer, P. Oliver, . . .217 

E. R. Potter, R. Robbins, E. Robbins, J. D. Rupp, J. Savage, S. Swett, B. R. Thatcher, 

E. Thompson, .......... 218 

R. Webster, J. W. Barber, S. Hazard, J. S. Jenkins, W. Allen, J. L. Blake, . . 219 

W. Grimshaw, J. Frost, J. W. Thornton, J. F. Watson,. S. Willard, J. Willard, , 220 
W. Willis, R. C. Winthrop, S. Spooner, J. McMackie, C. A. Goodrich, B. Drake, G. 

Copway, C. Campbell, . ... . . . . . .221 

Louis and Willis Gaylord Clark, C. A. Logan, R. Dawes, C. G. Lester, [. . 222 

SECTION IV.— Writers on Literature and Criticism. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, .......... 222 

Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli, ....... 227 

Horace Binney Wallace, Henry Reed, ....... 228 

W. B. Reed, Verplanck, .229 

R. W. Griswold, W. A. Jones, 230 

Park Beiyamin, 0. D. Cleveland, ... .... 231 

SECTION v. — Political \Vriters. 

Alexander H. Everett, .......... 231 

Edward Everett, 232 

Daniel Webster, .234 

John Quincy Adams, ......... 236 

Benton, Clay, ...... 237 

Calhoun, LegarS, .......... 238 

Choate, Mrs. McCord, T. R. Dew, B. Tucker, . . . . . .239 

E. Tucker, De Bow, Wheaton, 240 

W. B. Lawrence, ........... 241 

W. Whitney, W. Jay, 242 

2 



XIV CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
F. L. Olmsted, J. Paxker, T. Lieber, C. Gushing, ...... 243 

L. Spooner, H. A. S. Dearborn, T. Dwight, T. Lyman, VT. J. Duane, S. Colwell, G. M. 

Dallas, J. R. Tyson, . , . . . . . . . _ 244 

D. P. Brown, D. B. Warden, ........ 245 

SECTION VI. — Scientific V/riters. 

Benjamin Sllliman. Denison Olmsted, ........ 245 

Joseph Henry, Alexander Dallas Bache, ....... 246 

r. Bache, R. Dunglison, 0. M. Mitchel, . . . ■ . . . .247 

Robert Dale Owen, D. D. Owen, Richard Owen, S. G. Morton, G. R. Gliddon, . 248 

J. C. Nott, J. Eachman, E. Hitchcock, D. Drake, J. Cassin, .... 243 

J. Espy, J. K. Townsend, W. S. W. Ruschenberger, J. L. D. Comstock, J. Renwick, J. 

Bell, J. Thacher, T. Sewell, . . . . . . . ,250 

J. Bigelow, W. Hooker, W. F. Lynch, Dr. Kane, S. W. Williams, . . .251 

S. Tyler, H. Vethake, C. Davies, J. B. Thompson, T. Ewbank, J. E. TTorcestef, . 252 

C. A. Goodrich, •••••..... 253 

Prof. Marsh, W. C. Fowler, C. C. Felton, J. W. Gibbs, . . . . . 254 

Dr. Tajlor, C. Anthon, E. A. Andrews, ....... 255 

J. J. Owen, Prof. Follen, Mrs. Follen, P. Bullions, G. Brown, J. Rush, W. Russell, . 256 
A. Comstock, R. G. Parker, ••••.... 257 

SECTION VII. — Theological V/riters. 

Archibald Alexander, . , . . . . . , . . 257 

James Alexander, .......... 258 

Addison Alexander, .......... 259 

S. D. Alexander, Samuel Miller, . . . . . . . . 264 

President Carnahan, .......... 265 

Albert Barnes, . . . . . , . . , , 266 

Robert J. Breckinridge, .......... 267 

J. Breckinridge, S. H. Cox, ........ 268 

T. H. Skinner, G. Duffield, . . . . . . . . .269 

J. Parker, Dr. Tbornwell, Dr. Junkin, G. Bush, J. W. Yeomans, . . . 270 

E. D. Yeomans, J. Janeway, ......... 271 

J. Wood, Dr. Sprague, Dr. Spring, N. Murray, S. G. Winchester, J. B. Waterburj', 272 
L. Coleman, J. M. Olmstead, Joel Jones, J. H. James, .... 273 

0. C. James, I. S. Spencer, J. M. Krebs, R. W. Dickinson, L. W. Green, H. Reed, J. 
G. Wilson, J. L. Wilson, . . . . . . . . .274 

Lj-man Beocher, N. S. Prince, J. B. Walker, W. M. Lowrie, W. M. Thomson, . 275 

Moses Stuart, L. A. Sawyer, F. D. W. Ward, H. P. Tappan, . . . .276 

Edward Robinson, I. W. Stuart, ........ 277 

Bela B. Edwards, Eli Smith, . . , . . . . . .278 

Prof. Upham, C. C. Upham, L. Woods, ....... 279 

N. W. Taylor, J. Murdock, H. A. Roland, H. Newcomb, I. N. Tarbox, W. B. Tappan, . 2S0 
President Woolsey, Myron and Hubbard Winslow, T. T. Stone, J. Hawes, J. O. Dwight, 281 
H. G. 0. Dwight, J. B. Dods, A. B. Cliapin, H. Humphrey, A. Nettleton, B. Tyler, G. 
B. Cheever, H. T. Cheever, . . . . . . . . .282 

Dr. Bethune, C. G. Finney, . . ' . . . . . .283 

W. C. Brownlee, J. F. Berg, D. Abeel, J. Scudder, C. P. Krauth, . . . .285 

J. G. Schmucker, S. S. Schmucker, B. Kurtz, L. Mayer, P. F. Mayer, T. Stork, H. Har- 
baugh, ............ 286 

J. W. Nevin, W. G. Chauning, W. F. Chauning, W. H. Channing, E. T. Channing, 287 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



W. Clianning, W. E. Channing, Jr., N. N. Frothingham, A. Norton, G. B. Noyes, W. 
Fnrness, .......... 

0. Dewey, G. "W. Burnap, S. G. Bulfinch, A. A. Livermore, W. Mountford, 
J. Whitman, T. R. Sullivan, C. Robbins, T. B. Thayer, T. Parker, 
Bishops Hopkins, Onderdonk, and Potter, .... 

Bishops Meade, Brownell, and Doane, ...... 

P. Beasley, J. M. Wainwright, . . . . ... 

Dr. Hawks, J. A. Clark, B. Dorr, H. Hooker, H. D. Evans, S. P. Jarvis, 

W, D. Wilson, W. Berrian, S. H. Turner, S. Seabury, . 

Dr. Wayland, B. Stow, H. Malcom, E. L. Magoon, J. G. Pike, W. Hague 

J. S. C. Prey, J. 0. Choules, I. Chase, J. N. Brown, . 

J. Belcher, J. P. Durbin, S. Olin, H. B. Bascom, Le Roy Sunderland, . 

Dr. Raphall, J. Leeser, H. Ballou, ..... 

Alexander Campbell, Thomas Whittemore, ..... 



pAaB 

H. 



290 
291 
292 
293 
294 
295 
296 
297 



300 



SECTION VII. — Miscellaneous ^Vriters. 

Mrs. Sigourney, ........... 302 

Mrs. Willard, 304 

Mrs. Phelps, ........... 306 

Mrs. Gilman, Mrs. Parrar, Madame D'Arusmont (Panny Wright), . . . 307 

Anne Royall, ........... 308 

Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Parnham, ......... 309 

Mrs. Tuthill, Mrs. Green, Harriet Parley, . . . . . . . 310 

President Quincy, Henry and William Ware, ...... Slt 

Horace Mann, 0. W. B. and W. B. 0. Peabody, G. B. Emerson, P. C. Gray, S. M. Worcester, 312 
D. P. Page, D. M. Reese, C. C. Jewett, P. Saunders, H. R. Schoolcraft, . . .314 

G. Catlin, C. Wilkes, J. L. Stephens, J. Stryker, T. H. Pefkins, T. B. Thorpe, . 315 

M. M. Noah, R. A. Wilson, J. T. Buckingham, C. P. Briggs, J. A. Dix, . . 316 

J. G. Cogswell, J. R. Bartlett, W. A. Alcott, A. J. Downing, J. Bristed, . . 317 

J. P. Schroeder, P. W. Taylor, C. Colton, W. Colton, S. Robinson, T. P. Hunt, D. Hoff- 
man, R. Baird, ••........ 318 

C. S. Stewart, T. H. Gallaudet, H. P. Peet, . . . . . .319 

J. Wilson, J. K. Mitchell, P. A. Packard, R. Peale, . . . . . .320 

J. D. Nourse, J. C. Passmore, N. Biddle, J. R. Chandler, R. Sears, E. Williams, . 321 

S. S. Goodrich (Peter Parley), P. B. Goodrich, . . . . . .322 



CHAPTER V. 
From 1850 to the Present Time. 

Introductory Remarks, .......... 323 

SECTION I.— The Poets. 

Longfellow, •••........ 323 

Whittier, . . . . . . . . . , , 329 

Bryant, ............ 333 

Boker, 336 

Buchanan Read, ........... 339 

Saxe, . . . . . . . . . . . .340 

Holland, Aldrich, . . , . , , . . . . , 343 

Pields, C. T. Brooks, W. A. Butler, ........ 346 

W. H. Burleigh, A. J. Duganne, T. D. English, C. Gayler, T. Powell, A. B. Street, . 347 



XVI CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

Sydney Dyer, . . . , . . . . . . .348 

R. H. Stoddard, Mrs. E. D. Stoddard, S. D. Phelps, S. W. Duffield, . . . .349 

E. S. Miller, S. M. Hagerman, Ray Palmer, F. W, Shelton, .... 350 

M. F. Bigney, H. M, Clarkson, L. Fontaiue, . . . . . . .351 

H. L. Flash, ........... 352 

Mrs. M. E. Tucker, Mrs. M. S. Homes, Mrs. J. P. Creswell, Mrs. M. J. Preston, . . 353 

Mrs. A. P. Dionies, Mrs. R. V. Jeffrey, . . . , , . .356 

Agnes Leonard, Mrs. F. M. Downing, ........ 357 

Mrs. L. V. French, Mrs. C. J. M. Jordan, Mrs. M. B. Clark, Mrs. C. 0. Donnelly, Mrs. C. 

Cole, Miss M. E. Moore, ......... 358 

Miss A. R. Blount, Miss S, A. Brock, Mrs. M. E, Bryan, Mrs. C. A. Ball, . . 359 

Miss S. A. Talley, Miss C. B. Sinclair, Miss A. C. Ketchum, Alice and Phoebe Cary, . 360 
Mrs. E. C. Kinney, .......... 364 

E. C. Stedman, . . . , . . . . . . .366 

Mrs. E. S. Smith, Mrs. A. C. Botta, Mrs. T. Bolton, ..... 367 

Miss Pollard, Mrs. (Akers) Allen, . . 368 

Mrs. M. S. Sangster, T. MacKellar, W. Baxter, . . . . . . 369 

E. D. Smith, R. Furman, T. H. Hill, J. B. Hope, A. M. Keiley, S. Y. Levy, H. R, Jackson, 

E. Marks, P. H. Hayne, ......... 370 

G. H. Miles, J. D. Bryant, E. Young, J. T. Humphreys, . . . . .371 

A. J. Requier, B. Shipp, J. R. Randall, A. D. F. Randolph, . . . .372 

E. W. Ellsworth, 373 

R. W. Wright, 374 

Walt Whitman, . . . 376 

Bret Harte, 378 

Joaquin Miller, ........... 382 

American Hymnody, Psalm and Hymn Writers, ...... 383 

Psalm and Hymn Books, ......... 385 

SECTION II.— Writers on Literature and Criticism. 

Lowell, 386 

Tuckerman, Whipple, 389 

Kate Field, Mrs. Putnam, Delia Bacon, M. C. Tyler, 390 

E. S. Gould, F. J. Child, R. G. White, 391 

H. N. Hudson, J. P. Quincy, H. Corson, . 392 

A. Gilman, Duyckinck brothers, ........ 393 

S. A. Allibone, J. W. Davidson, . . . 394 

Mrs. M. T. Tardy, 395 

SECTION III. — Magazinists. 

Holmes, 395 

Parton, ' . • .397 

Fanny Fern, ........... 398 

Gail Hatnilton, G. W. Curtis, . 400 

Howells .401 

Higginson, ........... 402 

Trowbridge, . . . . . . . . . . .403 

J. W. Palmer, Mrs. Palmer, Gen. Hill, ....... 406 

SECTION IV. — Journalists. 

Bennett, 407 

Greeley, Raymond, .......... 409 



CONTENTS. 



XVll 



Hurlbut, 
Godkin, . 



Parke Godwin, ...... 

John R. Thompson, ..... 

Prentice, Ripley, Dana, Bowles, .... 

J. Bigelow, II. C. Watson, C. H. Sweetser, C. Nordhoff, C 
McMichael, Forney, Mackenzie, . . . . 

Albert D. Richardson, .... 

George Alfred Townsend, .... 

Alexander Wilson, Whitelaw Reid, . 

James W. Simonton, ..... 

New York Associated Press, .... 

C. C. Coffin, ...... 

R. B. Coffin, I. Pray, ..... 

Curtis Guild, ...... 

E. Eggleston, S. I. Prime, .... 

E. D. G. Prime, W. C. Prime, T. Tilton, Mrs. Swisshelm, 



J. Biddle, 



PAGE 

.411 
413 

. 414 

416 
. 417 

418 
. 419 

420 
. 421 

423 
.425 



428 
429 
430 
431 



SECTION v.— The Humorists. 

C. F. Browne,— "Artemus Ward," . . . . . . . .433 

S. L. Clemens, — " Mark Twain," ........ 437 

C. H. Webb, — "John Paul," • .442 

B. P. Shillaber, — " Mrs. Partington," 

H.W. Shaw, — "Josh Billings," ....... 

Charles G. Leland, — " Hans Breitmann," . . . * . 

H. P. Leland, M. H. Thompson — " Doesticks," G. H. Derby- "John Phoenix," . 

Seba Smith, — "Major Jack Downing," ...... 

G. W. Bagby, — " Mozis Addums," ....... 

Judge Longstreet, W. T. Thompson, . . . . . . 



444 
446 
447 
449 
450 
451 
454 



SECTION VI. — Miscellaneous ^Vriters. 

Bayard Taylor, . . . . . . . . . . .456 

D. H. Strother, — " Porte Crayon," . 457 

J. R. Browne, J. J. Jarves, J. C. Fletcher, ....... 459 

R. Serames, E. J. Lewis, R. Roosevelt, ....... 460 

C. A. Bristed, E. S. Gould, H. H. Weld, W. Elder, E. Sargent, . . . .461 

Henry Giles, 462 

S. S. Cox, 463 

T. S. Kirkbride, E. C. Wines, J. B. Gough, . . . . . . . 464 

R. G. Pardee, E. Parrish, Mrs. C. H. Dall, C. L. Brace, W. W. Story, . . .465 

W. C. Dana, A. G. Mackey, Madame Le Yert, W. W. Hillard, . . . .466 

Prof. La Borde, S. T. Wallis, Holcombe Brothers, . . . . . .467 

H. Barnard, F. A. Barnard, ......... 468 

C. Northend, C. H. Wiley, 469 

John Ogden, 470 

I. Mayhew, J. P. Wickersham, . . . . . . . . .471 

S. S. Randall, W, Swinton, 472 

Joseph Alden, ........... 473 

John S. Hart, 474 

A. Holbrook, 475 

2* B 



xvui 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION VII. — Novels and Tales. 

PAGE 

Hawthorne, ........... 475 

Theodore Winthrop, .......... 476 

Thoreau, R. H. Dana, .......... 477 

Donald Mitchell, R. B. Kimball 478 

J. R. Gilmore, — "Edmund Kirke," ....... .479 

Henry Morford, .......... 480 

W. H. Peck, W. G. Simms, . . . . . . , . .481 

C. A. Lanier, J. S. Holt, W. W. Turner, F. R. Goulding, C. Dimitry, J. Esten Cooke, . 482 
Philip Pendleton Cooke, . . . . . . . . .483 

R. M. Bird, C. J. Peterson, 485 

H. Peterson, H. Melville, J. V. Huntingdon, . . . . . . -486 

C. Barnard, E. E. Hale, . .487 

J. De Mille, E. Kellogg, T. S. Arthur, 488 

H. A. Wise, F. Ludlow, J. L. McConnel, J. H. Robinson, H. E. Scudder, E. Bennett, J. 

Brougham, W. M. Turner, . . . . . . . . . 489 

E. H. Stauffer, S. Cobb, G. M. Baker, W. T. Adams, ..... 490 

W. I. Bradley, P. Carter, W. M. Thayer, 491 

Z. A. Mudge, J. Abbott, J. S. C. Abbott, ....... 492 

Abbott Brothers, R. J. Parvin, Mrs. H. B. Stowe, . . . . . .493 

The Warners, Mrs. A. S. Stephens, ........ 495 

Mrs. Southworth, ........... 496 

Mrs. Cora Mowatt Ritchie, , . . . . . . . . 497 

Mrs. S. J, Lippincott, Mrs. A. P. Spofiford, Mrs. L, C. Moulton, .... 498 

Miss Alcott, . . . . . . . . . ... 499 

Olive Logan, Anna Dickinson, ......... 500 

Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, .......... 501 

Caroline Chesebro, .......... 502 

Mrs. M. J. Holmes, Mrs. Terhune, — " Marion Harland," .... 503 

Mrs. S. P. King. Mrs. M. E. Whitaker, Mrs. C. H. Jervey, Mrs. R. M. Murphy, Miss C. V. 

Dargan, Miss Louise Elenjay, ........ 504 

Mrs. M. H. Robinson, Miss S. J. C. Whittlesey, Mrs. L. P. Cutler, Miss M. J. Upshur, 

Miss M. T. Magill, Mrs. A. E. Wilson, . . . . . . .505 

Mrs. E. W. Bellamy, Miss M. A. Cruse, Miss C. W. Barber, Mrs. C. A. Warfield, Mrs. E. 

P. Lee, Mrs. M. L. Clack, 506 

Mrs. E. M. Wynne, Mrs. E. L. Pugh, Mrs. S. A. Dorsey, Mrs. K. A. Dubose, Miss E. 

A. Dupuy, ........... 507 

Mrs. Georgiana McLeod, Mrs. Anne M. Seemuller, Miss Nellie Marshall, Mrs. Sallie R. 

Ford, Mrs. Jane T. Cross, ........ 508 

Mrs. Julia C. R. Dorr, Maria Cummings, Mr. and Mrs. Denison, .... 509 

Maria J. B. Browne, Sara H. Browne, Mrs. Julia McNair Wright, . . . 510 

Mrs. Metta Victoria Victor, Mrs. Frances Fuller Barritt, Miss Lucy Larcom, . . 511 

Amanda Douglas, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Estelle Anna Lewis, Adeline Trafton, Mrs. 

J. E. McConaugby, 512 

Mrs. H. M. Baker, — " Madeline Leslie," ....... 513 

A. R. Baker, D. D., Mrs. Vienna G. Ramsay, ...... 515 

Mrs. Mary H. Seymour, Mrs. Sarah T. Martyn, Rev. W. Carlos Martyn, . . . 516 

Mrs. Sadlier, . . . . . . . . . . .517 

C. F. Orne, Mrs. Caroline Orne, Lucy Ellen Guernsey, ..... 518 

Clara G. Guernsey, Kate Hamilton, Mrs. A. K. Dunning, .... 519 

Catherine M. Trowbridge, Mary Halloway, Harriet B. McKeever, Mrs. A. C. Chaplin, . 520 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAGE 
Mrs. Jane D. C. Chaplin, Mrs. Anna Bache. Mrs. C. E. K. Davis, Mrs. Margaret Hosmer, 

Mrs. Helen Conant, ......... 521 

Mrs. M. L. Peebles, Mrs. Mary J. Hildeburn, Mrs. Sarah A. Myers, Mrs. Mattie D. Britts, 522 
Julia A. and Joanna H. Matthews, Martha Fiuley, Mrs. Jenny M. Parker, Mrs. Mary 

H. Pike, Margaret M. Robertson, ........ 623 

Julia C. Thompson, Mrs. Frances J. B. Smith, Annie M. Mitchell, Mrs. H. V. Cheney, 

Mrs. Gushing, Mrs. Foster, Mrs. A. L. Wister, Mrs. M. L. Clark, Mrs. M. C. "VYeston, 524 

SECTION VIII. — Historical. 

Prescott, Hildreth, .......... 525 

Bancroft, ............ 526 

Ticknor, 527 

Motley, J. E. Wilson, . . . . ... . . . .528 

J. F. Kirk, G. M. Towle, W. D. Willard, C. Campbell, ..... 529 

J. F. H. Claiborne, J. H. Logan, J. D. McCabe, E. A. Pollard, J. H. Wheeler, W. Allan, 

F. H. Alfriend, .......... 530 

Mrs. J. P. McGuire, R. H. Howistou, W. J. Rivers, F. Vincent, J. G. Shea, . . 631 

J. A. Shea, R. McSherry, J. McSherry, . . . . . . . .532 

W. H. Foote, J. B. Dillon, W. J. Tenney, 533 

G. S. Hillard, A. D. White, . . 634 

Francis Parkman, Winthrop Sargent, ....... 535 

John D. Baldwin, Henry C. Lea, . . . . . . . .536 

Vinceuzo Botta, John R. Brodhead, William. A. Whitehead, M. T. Walworth, . 537 

B. F. DeCosta, T. Buckingham Smith, . . . . . . . ,538 

S. G. Drake, Francis S. Drake, Samuel A. Drake, Joseph Thomas, Reuben A. Guild, 539 
John Savage, Henry Stevens, W. H. Whitmore, J. T. Headley, George G. Ellis, . 540 

S. Eliot, B. Perley Poore, Mrs. EUet, Frank Moore, ..... 541 

J. 0. Noyes, R. Tomes, J. W. De Peyster, B. J. Lossing, S. P. Bates, . . .542 

J. R. Sypher, ........... 543 

J. J. Anderson, ........... 544 

SECTION IX. —Writers on Political Economy. 

Henry C. Carey, F. Sheppard, ......... 544 

E. J. Morris, J. W. Webb, C. F. Adams, Charles Sumner, ..... 645 

George Sumner, Wendell Phillips, ........ 546 

Charles Lanmau, .......... 647 

Alex. H. Stephens, Geo. Fitzhugh, H. Middleton, . . . . . .548 

W. H. Prescott, H. R. Helper, ........ 649 

SECTION X. — Scientific Writers. 



Agassiz, ........... 

Mrs. Agassiz, Isaac Lea, ........ 

S. D. Gross, A. Winchell, S. H. Dickson, J. W. Draper, A. Gray, 

J. D. Dana, R. Pumpelly, Com. Maury, ...... 

E. G. Squier, J. Brockelsby, W. J. Rolfe, J. Johnston, .... 

Le Roy C. Cooley, J. Dorman Steele, Sanborn Tenney, 

S. A. Norton, J. C. Dalton, H. J. Osborn, D. A. Wells, W. H. Wells, 

B. Sears, E. A. Sheldon, Dio Lewis, W. W. Hall, E. Burritt, E. Bowen, A. L. Gihon, 

Catherine E. Beecher, H. M. Bouvier, Elizabeth P. Peabody, Elizabeth Blackwell, 

Benjamin Greenleaf, J. Dodd, H. N. Robinson, A. Schuyler, Edward Brooks, 



550 
. 551 

552 
. 553 

554 
. 555 

556 
. 557 

558 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



E. E. "White, J. Raj', 

W. D. Whitney, M. Scheie De Vere, ........ 

Horatio Hale, Prof. March, President Hill, ...... 

Prof. Mcllvaine, J. Bascom, J. R. Boyd, ....... 

Prof. Bledsoe, Prof. H. N. Day, ........ 

H. Coppee, R. H. Tyler, W. A. Wheeler, F. Bowen, 

R. H. Rivers, T. Wharton Collens, B. L. Gildersleeve, Thomas Chase, George Stuart, 
Howard Crosby, Alpheus Crosby, W. S. Tyler, J. H. Hanson, .... 
George R. Crooks, N. C. Brooks, W. Bingham, M. Willson, .... 
Prof. McGuflfey, J. M. Watson, Miss Berard, 
R. Sterling, Profs. Newell and Creery, G. P. Quackenbos, G. Vandenhofif, S. P. Andrew 



PAQE 
. 659 



561 
562 

563 
664 
565 
566 
567 
568 



SECTION XII.— Theological and Religious. 

Charles Hodge, . . . . . . ... 

A. A. Hodge, W. H. Green, J. C. Moffat, John Maclean, .... 

James McCosh, L. H. Atwater, . . . . , . , . , 

C. W. Shields, H. A. Boardman, T. Edwards, ...... 

R, Davidson, J. M. Macdonald, J. Hall, S. J. Baird, W. E. Schenck, 

J. W. Dulles, M. W. Jacobus, G. Burrowes, .,,.... 
J, A. Collier, R. F. Sample, J. E. Rockwell, Dr. Shedd, H. B, Smith, 

A. D. Smith, N. L, Rice, W. Adams, T. L. Cuyler, . ... 

T. DeWitt Talmage, A. Taylor, Tayler Lewis, 

M. Hopkins, J. Haven, E. N. Kirk, 

D. X. Junkin, W. P. Breed, W. M. Blackburn, D. Baker, . . . . 
W. M. Baker, W. S. Plumer, ........ 

T. V. Moore, R. L. Dabney, H. Ruffner, W. H. Ruffner, . . . . . 

G. D. Armstrong, T. Smyth, J, Leyburn, ....... 

Stuart Robinson, W. A. Scott, ......... 

C. P. Krauth, M. L. Stoever, E. A. Schweinitz, . . . . 

S. Philips, J. H. Seiss, C. F. Schaeflfer, C. W. SchaeflFer, P. Schaff, . . . . 

J. P. Thompson, A. C, Thompson, N. G. Clark, I. P. Warren, M. H. Smith, G. P. Fisher, 

B. W. Dwight, W, A. Hallock, . . . 

Mrs. M. A. Hallock, 

Henry Ward Beecher, Edward Beecher, Charles Beecher, Calvin E. Stowe, . 

R. S. Storrs, H Bnshnell, L. Bacon, H, C. Trumbull, , . . . . 

E. Pond, N. Adams, P. A. Chadbourne, E. F. Burr, H. M. Dexter, 

Prof. Park, Austin Phelps, Mrs. Phelps, ....... 

Miss Phelps, J. Todd, A. Mahan, J. H. Fairchild, ...... 

H. W. Bellows, F. H. Hedge, A. P. Peabody, C. C. Everett, W. R. Alger, John Weiss, . 

E. H. Chapin, R. Colly er, Theophilus Parsons, Henry James, A. J. Davis, 

H. J. Ripley, H. B. Hackett, A. Hovey, J. T. Champlin, . . . . . 

J. Chaplin, G. W. Samson, T. J. Conant, ....... 

W. R. Williams, H. C. Fish, J. Dowling, D. C. Eddy, W. W. Everts, P. Church, . 
Robert Turnbull, John J. Butler, Joseph Banvard, James M. Pendleton, 
J. B. Jeter, John L. Dagg, P. H. Mell, Robert Fuller, John McClintock, James Strong, . 
George Peck, William Nast, J. T. Crane, Abel Stevens, ..... 

Daniel Wise, J. H. Vincent, W. P. Strickland, R. S. Foster, D. P. Kidder, 

D. D. Whedon, J. Cross, C. F. Deems, D. W. Clark, C. Collins, L. M. Lee, 

D. R. NcAnally, E. 0. Haven, H. N. McTyeire, R. Abbey, S. D. Baldwin, J. 0. Andrew, 
T. 0. Summers, .......... 

L. Rosaer, J. Challen, W. J. Barbee, W. T. Moore, Isaac Errett, 



570 
571 
572 
573 
674 
575 
576 
577 
578 
579 
580 
581 
582 
583 
584 
585 
586 
587 
588 
589 
590 
591 
592 
593 
594 



597 



601 
602 



604 
606 



CONTENTS. 



XXI 



Bobert Milligan, J, T. Barclay, ... 

S. Barclay Johnson, R. Richardson, Bishops Mcllvaine, Eastbnrn, and Kip, 
Bishops "Williams, Lee, Odenheimer, Stevens, Huntington, Coxe, Southgate, 
John S. Stone, ...... 

I". Wharton, R. Newton, W. R. Hnntington, J. A. Spencer, E. E. Beardsley, 
S. H. Tyng, Dudley A. Tyng, S. Osgood, 
George Jones, N. S. Richardson, J. Swett, W. M. Reynolds, R. A. Hallam, R, 
Archbishop Kenrick, .... 

Archbishops Hughes, and Spalding, 

Archbishop Purcell, Bishop England, 

Archbishop Bayley, Bishop Ives, Xavier D. McLeod, 

Fathers Preston, Hecker, Hewitt, Stone, . 

C. C. Pise, P. I'redet, 0, A. Brownsou, J, McGill^ R. H. Clarke, J. M. Finotti 



Lowell 



PAGE 

. 607 



610 
. 611 

612 
. 613 

614 
. 615 

616 
. 617 

618 
. 619 





To Teachers. 



rpHE author of ttese volumes, on English and American Literature, 
-^ ventures to make a suggestion as to the method of using them as 
text-hooks. 

It is obvious, on a hare inspection of the pages, or of the table of Con- 
tents, that much of the matter here contained is not meant to be studied for 
the purpose of recitation. Such a use of the books would be to mistake 
entirely the design of the author, and to waste unwarrantably the time of 
the scholar. It is important, indeed, that the scholar should have by him, 
in cheap and convenient form for reference, information, so far as practi- 
cable, in regard to aU those writers who have contributed in any consid- 
erable degree to the body of our literature, and to have this information 
properly classified and brought together under suitable heads. Besides 
the convenience of having these details in this form for reference, there 
is another consideration not to be overlooked. The mere inspection 
of the authors thus epitomized and classified, gives the student general 
ideas which he can get in no other way, in regard both to the magnitude 
and comprehensiveness of the subject as a whole, and to the proportions 
and relations of the several parts. But it by no means follows that all 
these minutiae are to be regularly studied. 

A proper use of either of these books in the class-room would include 
attention to the following particulars : 

1. Study carefully the Introductions of the several Chapters, including 
the subdivisions into Sections. 

2. Study carefully, in full, one leading author, in each Chapter or Sec- 
tion, either taking the author who is named in the book as standing at the 



XXIV TO TEACHERS. 

head of that Section, or selecting some other, at the discretion of the 
teachi^, 

3. In connection with this exhaustive study of one author in each Sec- 
tion, learn the portion in coarse print in regard to the other associated 
authors in that Section, 

4. Name merely, without giving any other particulars, some of those 
authors who are presented in fine print. How many of these minor authors 
should be named, must be left to the judgment of the teacher. The better 
way is to require only a few, and leave the selection to each student. 

By observing these four conditions, the teacher may take a class intelli- 
gently and profitably through the entire book, in the shortest time allotted 
to the study in any school that makes a pretence of studying the subject 
at all. 

Having given this geateral survey of the whole subject, if more time is 
allowed, the process may be repeated, again and again, taking each time 
one additional author in each Section for special study, and a few additional 
minor authors for mere mention. 

Scholars, while passing through the book, should be advised and encour- 
aged to read all the matter in its connection. Curiosity of itself wiU lead 
them in many cases to read about authors in whom they are interested. 
But in no case is it deemed advisable that a larger amount than that 
already indicated should be required for recitation. 





American Literature. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Early Colonial Period. 

American Literature, strictly speaking, is that part of 
Euglish Literature wMcli has been produced upon American soil. 

Note. — A Literature is denominated from tlie language in which it is written. As Latin 
Literature is that written in the Latin language, and Greek Literature is that written in 
Greek, so English Literature is that written in the English language. It includes works 
written by Americans, as well as those written by Englishmen. It includes the works of 
foreignei's even, provided those works are written in the English tongue. For convenience 
of treatment, however, the subject is divided into two parts. The works in English v/ritten 
in England have been considered in a separate volume, under the title of English Literature ; 
those works in English written in the United States aie now to be considered, under the 
title of American Literature. 

American Literature dates from the first settlement of the 
American Colonies. 

Nearly all the leaders in these enterprises were men of education, gradu- 
ates of the English Universities. They came to the New World quite as 
much in defence of opinions as in quest of fortune. The pen and the print- 
ing-press shared from the first with the mupket, the axe, and the plough, in 
the work which the early American colonists set before them. 

The first period of this literature is distinctly marked. It includes all 
that was produced in the Colonies down to the time when the political fer- 
ment began which ended in the separation from the mother country. 
3 25 



J 

26 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

The works of this penod, thongh from the first racy of the soil, are yet not so distinctly 
American as those produced afterwards. Those early colonists were still Englishmen at heart, 
and most of what they wrote saw the light first in England. The type?!, theprinting^resses, 
the paper were still mostly there ; the audience to which they appealed was quite a^ much 
English as American. 

The first works in English written on American soil came from 
Virginia. 

Whitaker's Good Nev/es. 

Good Newes from Virginia, publislied in 1613, was the work of Alexander 
Whitaker, one of the settlers of the town of Henrico, on the James Biver. 

Wbitaker was of good English family, his father being the distinguished theologian, Dr. 
William Whitaker, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge. Young Whitaker came to 
America in a tnily missionary spirit, and engaged earnestly in his vocation as a Christian 
minister. It was he who baptized Pocahontas, and who also married her to Rolfe. 

The exact title of Whitaker's work was "Good Newes from Virginia, Sent to the Council 
and Company of Virgiuia resident in England." The dedication by W. Crashawe contains 
the following eulogium upon the author : " I hereby let all men know that a scholar, -a grad- 
uate, a preacher, well horn and friended in England ; not in debt nor disgrace, but compe- 
tently proTided for, and liked and beloved where he lived ; not in want, but (for a scholar 
as these days be) rich in possession, and more in possibility ; of himself, without any persua- 
sion (but God's and his own heart), did voluntarily leave his warm nest ; and to the wonder 
of his kindred and amazement of those who knew him, undertook this hard, but, in my 
judgment, heroical resolution to go to Virginia, and help to hear the name of God unto the 
Gentiles." 

William Strachet, the first Secretary of the Virginia Colony, wrote a work called History 
of Travaile into Virginia Britannia. It is not certain, however, that this work was written in 
America, though sometimes so credited. Strachey resided in the colony three years, 1610- 
1612, and then returned to England. The earliest date assigned to his work is 1618. 

Sandys's Ovid. 
The first purely literary work produced on American soil was the Trans- 
lation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, by George Sandys, in 1621. Sandys was, 
at the time, Treasurer to the Virginia Colony, and the work referred to was 
penned on the banks of the James Eiver. 

Though written in America, this work was printed in London, being issued there in folio, 
with a dedication to King Charles I. In the dedication, Sandys apologizes for any want of 
scholarly finish in his poetry by referring to the rude and unsettled kind of life in which 
his verses had been produced. He tells the king that the poem "had been limned by that 
imperfect light which was snatched from the hours of night and repose. For the day was 
not his own, but dedicated to the service of his father and himself; and had that service 
proved as fortunate, as it was faithful in him, as Avell as [in] others more worthy, they had 
hoped, before the revolution of many years, to have presented his Majesty witli a rich and 
well-peopled kingdom. But as thiijgs had turned, he had only been able to bring from thence 
himself and that composition, which needed more than a single denization. For it was 
doubly a stranger, being sprung from an ancient Roman stock, and bred up in the New 
World, of the rudeness whereof it could not but participate ; especially as it was produced 
among; wars and tumults, instead of under the kindly and peaceful influence of the muses." 



THE EAKLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 27 

For further particulars in regard to Sandys, see "English Literature," p. 107. 
Sandys's poem was held in high respect by Dryden and Pope. Dryden pronounced him the 
best versifier of his age. A few lines from the description of the Golden Age are quoted as 
" a pleasing memorial of this classic theme, pursued amidst the perils and trials of the early 
colonial settlement." — Duyckinck. 

. . . . In firm content 

And harmless ease their days were spent, 

The yet-free Earth did of her own accord 

(Untoru with ploughs) all sorts of fruit afford. 

Content with nature's unenforced food, 

They gather wildings, strawb'ries of the wood, 

Some cornels, what upon the bramble grows, 

And acorns which Jove's spreading oak bestows. 

'Twas always Spring; warm Zephyrs sweetly blew 

On smiling flowers, which without setting grew. 

Forthwith the earth corn unmanured bears; 

And every year renews her golden ears : 

With milk and nectar were the rivers filled ; 

And yellow honey from green elms distilled. 

Vaughan's Golden Fleece. 
Another work written about the same time, but in a remote northeastern 
settlement, was The Golden Fleece, by Sir William Vaughan. 

The Golden Fleece was a small quarto, partly in prose and partly in verse, humorous and 
satirical, intended to set forth the general degeneracy of manners in England and the ad- 
vantages of emigrating to America. 

The Golden Fleece was written at Cambrioll, the author's plantation in the southern 
part of Newfoundland, and was sent to London for publication, with a view of inducing 
other settlers to join him. The author himself was a native of "Wales, a physician and a 
poet, who had emigrated to America and had purchased a tract of land in Newfoundland. 
He signs himself Orpheus, Jr. The work is a curious specimen of Puritan thought mixed 
up with the old classic machinery of Apollo and the Muses. Parts of it are an irreverent 
parody of the litany, put into the mouth of Florio, a pedantic Italian then much in vogue 
in London. The following specimen will give some idea of the author's manner in this part 
of his work : 

From blaspheming of God's name, 

From recanting words with shame, 

From damnation eternal. 

From a rich soul internal. 

From a sinner will not mend. 

From a friend that will not lend, 



From such sins as do delight us. 
As from dreams that do affright us, 
From parasites that stroke us, 
From morsels that will choke us. 
From false sycophants that soothe us, 
As from those in sin do smooth us, 
From all profane discourses, 
From all ungodly courses. 
Sweet angel free 
Deliver m9. 



28 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The full title of this work is as follows: "The Golden Fleece, divided into three parts, 
under which are discovered the errors of religion, the vices and decay of the kingdom, and, 
lastly, the way to get wealth and to restore trading, so much complained of. Transported from 
CambrioU Colchos, out of the southernmost part of this Island, commonly called The New 
Found Land, by Orpheus Junior, for the general and perpetual good of Great Britain. 1626." 

Vaughan was the author of several other works, written in England. 



Morell's Nova Anglia. 

Another literary production of this early period was a poem by Rev. 
William Morell, entitled Nova Anglia, or New England. 

The Nova Anglia was composed in Latin hexameters, and afterwards translated by the 
author into English heroics. It is occupied mainly with a description of the aborigines and 
of the animals of the country. The author came to America in 1623, and after spending a 
year in Plymouth, returned to England. The poem was published in England after his return. 
It is not clear whether the poem was written in America or in England. 



Wood's New England's Prospect. 
New England's Prospect was the title of a descriptive work by William 
Wood, and was printed in London in 1634. 

Wood was a resident of the Plymouth Colony. After spending four years there, he went 
to London and published the work just named. The full title is : " New England's Prospect ; 
a true, lively, and experimental description of that part of America commonly called New 
England — discovering the state of that country, both as it stands to our new-come English 
planters, and to the old native inhabitants — laying down that which may both enrich the 
knowledge of the mind-travelling reader, or benefit the future voyager. By William Wood, 
London, 1631." In his preface, he says, "I have laid down the nature of the country 
without any partial respect unto it, as being my dwelling-place, where I have lived these 
four years, and intend, God willing, to return shortly again." 

The work is written in a cheerful strain, and some parts of it are in verse, in the common 
heroic couplet. The author's poetry, though giving frequent reminders of his English birth 
and training, has an unmistakable American flavor. In the lines quoted below, the imita- 
tion of Spenser is too obvious to escape notice, and yet no one could have written the de- 
scription who was not personally familiar with the American forest-trees : 

Trees, both in hills and plains, in plenty be, 

The long-liv'd oak, and mournful cypris tree, 

Sky-tow'ring pines, and chesnuts coated rough, 

The lasting cedar, with the walnut tough : 

The rosin-dropping fir, for masts in use. 

The boatmen seek for oares light, neat, growne sprewse, 

The brittle ash, the ever-trembling aspes. 

The broad-spread elm, whose concave harbours wasps, 

The water-spungie alder, good for nought. 

Small elderne, by the Indian fletchers * sought, 

The knottie maples, pallid birch, hawthornes. 

The horne-bound tree that to be cloven scorues ; 

Which from the tender vine oft takes his spouse, 

Who twines embracing arms about his boughs. 

* Makers of bows and arrows. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 29 

Mr. Wood, after returning to Massachusetts, represented the town of Lynn in the General 
Court in 1636; he was the principal founder and the Town Clerk of Sandwich, in the Ply- 
mouth Colony, in 1637 ; and be died there in 1639. 

The First Printing-Press. — The first printing-press in America was at 
Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was set up in the Presi- 
dent's house, in 1639. 

The First Printed Book. — The first book printed was the celebrated Bay- 
Psalm Book, Cambridge, 1640. 

Note. — Some small pamphlets had appeared before, as the Freeman's Oath, and an 
Almanac, but the Bay Psalm Book was the first book issued. 

The Hay Psalm JBooJc. — Before coming to New England the colonists had been 
accustomed to use the version by Sternhold and Hopkins, and that by Henry Ainsworth. 
(See English Literature, pp. 132, 184.) Ainsworth's Book of Psalms was published in Am- 
sterdam in 1612. The Puritans brought it with them to New England. But neither this 
version nor that of Sternhold and Hopkins was suflBciently literal to satisfy the scruples of 
the colonists. They had doubts, not only whether anything should be sung in public wor- 
ship except the very words of Scripture, but also whether any one except " church mem- 
bers" should join in the service, it being an act of religion. Even of the church members, 
women were supposed by some to be excluded from the service, on the ground that it is 
forbidden to a woman to speak in church. To meet these scruples, a number of the minis- 
ters undertook the preparation of a new version, which accordingly was extremely literal, 
and the Rev. John Cotton, of Boston, a man of great influence 'and authority, published 
a treatise, " The Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance," to show the propriety of this part 
of public worship. 

The men who were chiefly engaged in preparing the new version were the Rev. Richard 
Mather, of Dorchester, the progenitor of a race of great scholars, and himself a scholar and 
a leading man in the colony; tlie Rev. John Eliot, of Roxbury, of world-wide celebrity as 
the "apostle to the Indians ; " and the Rev. Thomas Welde, also of Roxbury, and a man of 
influence and standing. They were selected with reference, evidently, to their authority in 
church matters and their reputation as theologians, rather than for their poetical abilities. 
Under some apprehension, apparently, that the work might be found wanting in its literary 
character, the Rev. Tliomas Shepard, a brilliant preacher of Cambridge, addressed them a 
note of warning in the following significant rhymes : 

You Roxbury poets, keep clear of the crime 

Of missing to give us a very good rhyme. 

And you of Dorchester your verses lengthen, 

And with the text's own word your verses strengthen. 

The work was begun in 1639, and was completed and published in 1640, with the follow- 
ing title : " The Whole Book of Psalms, faithfully translated into English Metre. Where- 
unto is prefixed a Discourse declaring not only the Lawfulness, but also the Necessity of the 
Heavenly Ordinance of singing Scripture Psalms in the Churches of God." 

It being found necessary to employ "a little more art" upon the work, it was committed 
a few years later to the Rev. Henry Dunster, the first President of Harvard College, to be 
revised. Thus revised, the book found its way into general use. It was adopted and used 
almost exclusively in all the New England colonies, down to the period of the Revolution. 
Twenty-seven editions of it had been printed before 1750. It was also reprinted several 
times in England and Scotland, in both of which countries it was much used in dissent- 
ing congregations. 

The following specimen is from Dunster's revision : 
3* 



30 AMERICAN T^ITERATURE. 



PSALM CXXXYII. 

The rivers on of Babilon, 
There when wee did sit downe, 

Yea, even then, -vvee mourned when , 
Wee remembered Sion. 

Our harp wee did hang it amid, 

Upon the willow tree, 
Because there they that us away 

Led in captivitee, 

Eequir'd of us a song, and thus 
Askt mirth us waste who laid, 

Sing us among a Siou's song. 
Unto us then they said. 

The Lord's song sing, can wee, being 

In stranger's land ? then let 
Lose her skill my right hand if I 

Jerusalem forget. 

Let cleave my tongue my pallate on 

If mind thee doe not I, 
If chiefe joj'es o'er I prize not more 

Jerusalem my joy. 

Remember, Lord, Edom's sons' word ; 

Unto the ground, said they, 
It rase, it rase, when as it was 

Jerusalem her day. 

Blest shall he be that payeth thee, 

Daughter of Babilon, 
Who must be waste, that which thou hast 

Rewarded us upon. 

happie hee shall surely bee 

That taketh up, that eke 
Thy little ones against tlie stones 

Doth into pieces breake. 



Nathaniel V/ard. 



Nathaniel Ward, 1570-1653, acquired considerable notoriety, both in 
the Colonies and in England, by a work called The Simple Cobler of Agawam. 

Ward was born and educated in England, and was one of those clergymen who were 
silenced by Laud for non-conformity. lie thereupon emigrated to Massachusetts, and in 
1634 became pastor of Ipswich, or Agawam, as it was then called. ITo returned to England 
in 164.5, and remained there until his death. While in Massachusetts he published the piece 
already named, which was written in a very conceited, pedantic style, but contains some 
home thrusts at the way in which colonial matters were managed. The full title of the 
piece is: "The Simple Cobler of Agawam, in America, Willing to help Mend his Native 
Country, lamentably tattered, both in the Upper-leather and the Sole, with all the honest 



THE EAULY COLONIAL PERIOD. 31 

stitches he can take," etc. After returning to England, he wrote another piece of a similar 
kind, Mercurius Anti-3Iechanicus, or The Simple Cobler's Boy with his Lap-full of Caveats, 
etc. 

Ward, though a preacher, was originally bred to the law, had travelled considerably, and 
was well vei-sed in political affairs. He prepared the first code of laws established in 
New England, that, namely, which was adopted in 16il, and which was called The Body of 
Liberties. 

Ward was an inveterate punster, and remarkable for his coinage of new words. A few 
extracts are given in illustration of his peculiarities: 

" Many men, woodcoclv-like, live by their long bills." 

"Too much diet-bread will bring a man to a diet-drink ; mack-roones will make room for 
(no good) luxury. . Marmalade may mar my lady, me it shall not. March pane shall not be 
mj arch-bane." 

"It is a most toilsoroe task to run the wild-goose chase after a well-breath'd opinionist: 
they delight in vitilification : it is an itch that loves a life to be scrub'd ; they desire not 
satisfaction, but satisdiction, whereof themselves must be judges." 

"I honour the woman that can honour herself with her attire; a good text always de- 
serves a fair margent : I am not much offended if I see a trim far trimmer than she that 
wears it: in a word, whatever Christianity or civility will allow, I can afford with London 
measure; but when I hear a nugiperous gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is iu 
this week ; what the nudiustertian f;ishion of the Court, I mean the very newest ; with egg 
to be in it in all haste, whatever it be ; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the pro- 
duct of a quarter of a cypher, fitter to be kickt, if she were of a kickable substance, than 
either honour'd or humour'd." 

John Cotton. 

Eev. John Cotton, 1585-1652, is known by his Eloody Tenent Washed, 
in reply to Boger Williams, Milk for Babes, Meat for Strong Men, and sun- 
dry other publications suited to the times. 

Cotton was a native of Derby, in England, and a graduate of Cambridge. He was a zeal- 
ous Puritan, and a man of great and varied learning. He emigrated to America in 1633, an:l 
settled in Boston, where he exercised his ministry until his death, in 1652. He had a sharp 
controversy with Roger Williams, on the subject of the interference of the civil magistrate 
in the support of religious truth. Cotton contending for such interference, and Williams pro- 
testing against it. Pamphlets flew thick and fast between them, that being the mode of 
civil warfare in those days. He is known in the early colonial history as "the great Cotton.*' 
His learning, pastoral fidelity, and general amiability of character gave him great and do- 
served political influence in the young theocratic commonwealth. He was appointed by the 
General Court, in 16.36, to prepare a scheme of laws for the government of the colony. His 
work, made in pursuance of this appointment, and called An Abstract of the Laws of New 
England, though printed, was not adopted, the General Court preferring the Body of Liber- 
ties, prepared for the same purpose by Nathaniel Ward of Agawam, already noticed. Cot- 
ton's thencratical views of government were indeed of the strictest kind. 

Among his other publications are the following: Set Forms of Prayer; Keys of the King- 
dom of Heaven and the Power thereof, giving his views of church government; Meat fur 
Strong Men. containing his views of civil government: Milk for Babes, being a catechism 
for instructing young children in the elements of Christian doctrine. The piece last named, 
though small, was of great influence and importance. It was one of the documents which 
composed the famous New England Primer, and as such was for many generations stored in 
the memory of almost every New England child. 



32 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The general New England custom of beginning the Sabbath on Saturday CTening origi' 
Dated with Mr. Cotton. He published arguments, before leaving England, in favor of, such 
an observance, and his authority in Boston and throughout the colony was such that his 
view of the matter obtained general acquiescence. Cotton Mather gives the following char- 
acteristic anecdote of Mr. Cotton. " At another time, when Mr. Cotton had modestly replied 
unto one that would much talk and crack of his insight into The Revelation, 'Brother, I 
must confess myself to want light in those mysteries,' the man went home and sent him a 
pound of candles; upon which action this good man only bestowed a silent smile. He would 
not set the beacon of his great soul on fixe at the landing of such a little cock-boat." 

Thomas Hooker. 

Eev. Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647, better known in his OTrn day as 
" Minister Hooker," was another of the great lights of the early colonial 
settlements in New England. 

Hooker was a zealous Non-confoi'mist preacher in London, and being silenced by Laud, 
went to Delft, Holland, where he preached for some time to the English Puritans who had 
taken refuge there. In 1633 he emigrated Avith a large number of others to New England, 
and with his fellow-emigrants founded New Town, now Cambridge. A few years later, with 
a part of his congregation, he went to Connecticut and settled Hartford, where he ended 
his days. *^ 

Hooker was an exceedingly zealous preacher, and a man of untiring energj', and he ex- 
erted a controlling infl.uence in the colony. Nearly one himdred of his sermons were pub- 
lished after his death. His principal works are : A Survey of the Sum of Church Disci- 
pline; The Soul's Implantation; The Application of Redemption by the Effectual Work of 
the Word and Spirit of Christ, a small quarto of seven hundred pages, containing a sj'stem 
of practical divinity ; The Poor Doubting Christian drawn to Christ, of which the seventh 
edition was published in Boston in 1743. 

Hooker, Cotton, and Stone, all ministers of note, came over in 1633, in the same ship, and 
were the means of drawing many other colonists. " Such multitudes," says Cotton Mather, 
"flocked over to New England after them that the plantation at Newtown [Cambridge] be- 
came too strait for them." In another place, he speaks of "Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, 
and Mr. Stone, which glorious triumvirate coming together made the poor people in the 
wilderness, at their coming, to say, that the God of heaven had supplied them with what 
would in some sort answer their then great necessities : Cotton for their clothing. Hooker for 
ihtiiv fishing, and Stone for their building.^^ 

Samuel Stone. 

Rev. Samuel Stone, 1663, was born at Hartford, England, and educated at Cambridge. 

He came over in the same ship with Hooker and Cotton, and was associate pastor with 
Hooker, first at New Town or Cambridge, and then at Hartford. Mr. Stone published, A 
Congregational Cliurch is a Catholic Visible Church, and some other things, and left in man- 
uscript A Confutation of the Antinomians, and A Body of Divinity. Bancroft the historian 
says, " We know of no cardinals of that day so worthy of reverence as Hooker and Stone." 

Tlio following lines on the occasion of his death are wortliy of note, both as a specimen 
of the literature of the times, and as an evidence of the estimation in which Mr. Stone was 
held. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 33 

A stone more than the Ebenezer fam'd; 

Stone splendent diamond, right orient named; 

A cordial stone, that often cheered hearts 

With pleasant wit, which Gospel rich imparts; 

Whetstone, that edgify'd th' obtusest mind ; 

Loadstone, that drew the iron heart unkind ; 

A pond'rous stone, that would the bottom sound 

Of Scripture depths, and bring out Arcan's found ; 

A stone for kingly David's use to fit. 

As w^ould not fail Goliah's front to hit; 

A stone, an antidote, that brake the course 

Of gangrene errour, by convincing force ; 

A stone actxte, fit to divide and square; 

A squared stone became Christ's building rare. 

John Norton. 

Eev. John Norton, 1606-1663, a colleague of Ward in the church at 
Agawam or Ipswich, was the author of several works both in English and 
Latin. 

Norton was a graduate of the University of Cambridge, in England, and came to America 
in 1635. Wlien the churches in Zealand sent over to the clergy in New England, through 
Apollonius, various questions on church government, Norton wrote a reply in Latin, which 
gained him great applause. Fuller the church historian says of it: "Of all the authors that 
I have perused concerning the opinions of those Dissenting Brethren, none to me was more 
informative than Mr. John Norton (one of no less learning than modesty), minister in New 
England, in his answer to Apollonius." 

Of his English works, the best known is his Life of John Cotton. The titles of some of 
his other works are : The Doctrine of Godliness ; The Sufferings of Christ ; The Orthodox 
Evangelist; The Heart of New England Rent (about the Tuckers), etc. He also left in 
manuscript A Body of Divinity. 

Thomas Shepard. 

Eev. Thomas Shepard, 1605-1649, was one of the shining lights of 
the Massachusetts Colony. His best known work is The Parable of the 
Ten Virgins Opened. 

Mr. Shepard was educated at Cambridge, and took orders in the Church of England, but 
being silenced by Laud for non-conformity, emigrated to Boston, Mass., in 1635, and suc- 
ceeded Rev. Thomas Hooker as pastor at New Town, now Cambridge, where he remained 
until death. He was in high repute in the colony for his learning and piety. His Works, 
and a Memoir of his life, were published in Boston, in 1853, in 3 vols. The following are 
the titles of some of his treatises : New England's Lamentation for Old England's Errors ; 
Some Secret Cases Resolved ; The Clear Sunshine of the Gospel Breaking forth upon the 
Indians of New England; Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied; Liturgical 
Considerator Considered ; First Principles of the Oracles of God, etc. " Various testimonials 
have been tendered, on both sides of the Atlantic, to Mr- Shepard's excellence as a writer. 
President Edwards's estimate of him in this respect may be gathered from the fact that out 
of one hundred and thirty-two quotations which he makes from various authors, in his 
Work on the Affections, more than seventy-five axe from Mr. Shepard." — Sprague's 
AnndU. 

c 



34 AMEEICAN LITERATURE, 



Governor Winthrop. 

John Winthrop, 1588-1649, the first Governor of Massacliusetts, found 
time amid the exacting cares of oflB.ce to make some valuable contribu- 
tions to the literature of his period. 

Winthrop was chosen as leader of the Massachusetts colonists before they left England. 
No one man probably did more towards strengthening and moulding and giving character to 
the infant colony. He was of good family, son of Adam Winthrop, a lawyer of some dis- 
tinction, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the author of two works : 
A Model of Christian Charity, written on board the Arabella, on the Atlantic Ocean ; and A 
Journal of the Public Occurrences in the Massachusetts Colony. The latter, after lying a 
long time in manuscript, has been carefully printed by Mr. James Savage, the antiquary, 
with: annotations, under the title of The History of New England, from 1630 to 1649. Its 
Talue as an original historical document is extremely great. It is entitled to consideration 
also for its literary merits. 

" For years, Winthrop, the leader of this first great enterpirise, was the chief magistrate 
of this infant metropolis. His prudence guided its councils. His valor directed its strength. 
His life and fortune were spent in fixing its character or improving its destinies. A bolder 
spirit never dwelt, a truer heart never beat, in any man. Had Boston, like Rome, a conse- 
crated calendar, there is no name better entitled than that of Winthrop to be registered as 
its patron saint." — President Quincy. 



Governor Bradford. 

William Bradford, 1590-1657, the second Governor of the Plymouth Colony, though not 
having the advantage of a university education, as most of the colonial leaders had, was yet 
not wanting in culture or in literary productiveness. He published nothing of any mo- 
ment, but left some valuable manuscripts, which, after many narrow escapes from destruc- 
tion, have at length been brought to light by the persevering vigilance of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, and have been printed. His chief work was A History of the Plymouth 
Colony, from the formation of their church, in 1602, to 1647. Bradford wa^ himself one of 
the original band that came over in the Mayflower, in 1620, and on the death of Carver was 
elected the second Governor. 

Thomas Morton. 

Thomas Morton, 1646, published, in 1632, a book called The New 

English Canaan, describing that country and its inhabitants. 

This Morton, who signs himself *' of Clifford's Inn, Gent.," was not in sympathy with the 
Puritan notions, either on social or on religious questions. He was a free liver, a lover of 
sports and public carousals. In company with a set of roistering fellows like himself, 
he established a settlement at Mount Wollaston, which he named "Ma-re Mount." There 
they set up a May pole, brewed a barrel of beer, besides obtaining a case of other liquors, 
and had a grand carouse, with singing of songs and other revels. Morton was arrested for 
these scandalous proceedings, and sent out of the colony, but returned, and jiersisted for 
many years in his irregularities, to the great annoyance of the other colonists, who regarded 
him as a " troubler of Israel." His book is written with decided ability, and has many fine 
touches of humor. An extract is given : 

"The inhabitants of Pasonagessit (having translated the name of their habitation from 
that ancient savage name to Ma-re Mount ; and having resolved to have the name Confirmed 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 35 

for a memorial to after ages), did devise amongst themselves to have it performed in a sol- 
emn maimer witli Revels, and merriment after the old English custom, and prepared to set u^) 
a May-pule npon the festival daj' of Philip and Jacob ; and therefore brewed a barrel of excel- 
lent beer, and provided a case of bottles to be spent, with other good cheer, for all comers 
to that day. And liecause they would have it in a complete form, they had prepared a song 
fitting to the time and preseut occasion. And upon May-day they brought the May-pole to 
the place appointed, with drums, guns, pistols, and other fitting iiistrumeuts, for that pur- 
pose; and there erected it with the help of savages, that came thither of purpose to see the 
manner of our Revels. A goodly pine-tree of 80 feet long, was reared up, with a pair of 
buck-horns nailed on, somewhat near the top of it ; where it stood as a fair sea-mark for di- 
rections, how to find out the way to mine Host of Ma-re Mount 

" There was likewise a merry song made, which (to make their Revels more fashionable) was 
sung with a corns, every man bearing his part; which they performed in a dance, hand in 
hand about the May-pole, whiles one of the company sung, and filled out the good liquor 
like Gammedes and J upiter. 

THE SONG. 

Drink and be merry, merry, merry boys, 

Let all your delight be in Hymen's joys, 

If to Hymen now the day is come, 

About the merry May-pole take a roome. 

Make green garlons, bring bottles out; 

And fill sweet nectar freely about. 

Uncover thy head, and fear no harm, 

For here 's good liquor to keep it warm. 

" This harmless mirth made by young men (that lived in hope to have wives brought over 
to them, that would save them a labour to make a voyage to fetch any over) was much dis- 
tasted of the precise Separatists ; that keep much ado, about the tithe of mint and cummin, 
troubling their brains more than reason would require about things that are indifferent ; 
and from that time sought occasion against my honest Host of Ma-re Mount to overthrow his 
undertakings, and to destroy his plantation quite and clear." 

Nathaniel Morton. 
Nathaniel Morton, 1612-1685, Clerk of the Colonial Court of Ply- 
mouth, made a valuable contribution to the literature of the period by his 
New England's Memorial. 

Morton with the rest of his father's family emigrated to America and settled in Plymouth 
in 1623. He was Clerk of the Colonial Court from 1645 to his death in 1685. His work was 
the first regular history, that was published, of the New England Colonies. It was in the 
form of annals, beginning with the departure of the Pilgrims from England, and coming 
down to the date of its publication, 1669. Much of the materials was drawn from Governor 
Bradford's manuscript, already described. The full title of his book is : "New England's 
Memorial; or, a brief Relation of the most memorable and remarkable Passages of the Provi- 
dence of God, manifested to the Planters of New England in America ; with special reference 
to the First Colony thereof, called New Plymouth, published for the use and benefit of pres- 
ent and future generations.'" The work is one of extreme value on historical grounds, and 
is not wanting in literary merit. He gives, among other things, a minute narrative of the 
irregular proceedings of that " lord of misrule," Thomas Morton, already noticed. A short 
extract is given : 

"After this, they fell to great licentiousness of life, in all profaneness ; and the said Morton 
became lord of misrule, and maintained, as it were, a school of atheism ; and after they had 
got some goods into their hands, and got much by trading with the Indians, they spent it 



36 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

as vainly in quaffing and drinking both wine and strong liquors in great excess, as some 
have reported ten pounds within a morning, setting up a Maj-pole, drinking and dancing 
about it, and frisking about it like so many fairies, or furies rather, yea, and worse prac- 
tices, as if they had anew revived and celebrated the feast of the Eoman goddess Flora, or 
the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians." 

Governor Winslow. 

Edwaed Vv'ixslow, 1595-1655, who in 1633 succeeded Bradford as Gov- 
ernor of the Plymouth Colony, was the author of Good News from New 
England and of several other publications, historical and controversial. 

Governor Winslow was born in Worcestershire, and emigrated in the first band of pilgrims 
in 1620. Like most of the sturdy race of settlers to whidi he belonged, he could wield with 
equal vigor the axe, the sword, or the pen. His publications are Hypocrisy Unmasked, a 
true relation of the proceedings of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts against 
Samuel Gorton; New England's Salamander, a continuation of the sharp controversy begun 
by " Hypocrisy Unmasked ; " Good News from New England, a true relation of things very 
remarkable at the Plantation of Plymouth ; The Glorious Progress of the Gospel amongst 
the Indians in New England. 

Roger "Williams. 

EoGEE Williams, 1606-1683, famous as the aj)ostle of civil and religious 
liberty, and as the founder of a State established on that principle, is favor- 
ably known also by his writings, especially by his Bloody Tenent of Perse- 
cution, and other pieces growing out of it, in liis controversy with John 
Cotton on that subject. 

Williams was a native of Wales. He was educated at Oxford, and was ordained as a min- 
ister of the Church of England. In 1631 he emigrated to Massachusetts, in search of religious 
liberty, and preached for a time at Salem, but was banished from the colony in 1635 on 
account of his doctrines in regard to religious liberty. In 1636 he laid the foundations of the 
city of Providence, in which men of all creeds might enjoy full religious liberty; and going 
to England in 1643, he obtained a charter for the Province of Rhode Island, of which he was 
himself afterwards President. He lived at peace with the Indians, and exerted a great and 
beneficial influence over them. 

The main feature of Roger Williams's system was the doctrine that the State ought not 
to punish for breaches of the first table of the law. In this he was in advance of all his 
contemporaries, being the first bold advocate of entire and absolute toleration in matters of 
religion. He wrote the following works : The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of 
Conscience Discussed; The Hireling Ministry None of Christ's; George Fox digged out of 
his Burrows, being an attack upon the Quakers; Letters from Roger Williams to John 
Winthrop; Key into the Language of America, containing much curious information iu 
regard to the Indian languages, customs, etc. 

" Hoger Williams asserted the great doctrine of intellectual liberty. It became his glory 
to found a State ui)on that princi])le, and to stamp himself upon its rising institutions in 
characters so deep that the impress has remained to the present day, and can never be erased 
without the total destruction of the work. He was the first person in modern Christendom 
to assert, in its plenitude, the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions 
before the law; and in its defence he was the harbinger of Milton, the precursor and supe- 
rior of Jeremy Taylor." — BancrojL 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 37 

" If ever a Welsh Fuller should write the Worthies of Wales, Roger Williams will deserve, 
if not the first place, a place among the first ; for he began the first civil government upon 
eurth that gave equal libei'ty of couscience. His history belongs to America rather thaa 
England; but we must not even casually mention his name Avithout an expression of respect 
and reverence, for he was one of the best men who ever set foot upon the New World, — a 
man of genius and of virtue, in whom enthusiasm took the happiest direction and produced 
the best fruits." — Southey, Lon. Quar. Review. 

John Clarke, 1609-1676, was a friend of Roger Williams, and one of the founders of Rhode 
Island. Clarke was educated a physician, but after his settlement in New England, he be- 
came a preacher, and the pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport. Yisiting his friends at 
Lynn in 1651, and preaching there, he Avas arrested and imprisoned. His principal work 
Avas 111 NcAvs from New England, published in London in 1652. It contains an account of 
the discussion going on in the Colonies in regard to the question of toleration. 

President Cliauney. 

Charles CHAUisrcY, 1589-1672, second President of Harvard College, 
was a man of extensive literary and theological attainments, and of good 
repute as a writer. 

Chauncy was educated at the Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He 
was a man of learning, and was for a time Professor of Hebrew and Greek in Cambridge, but 
left England for the Ncav World on account of the persecutions under Laud. He Avas sixty 
years old when appointed President. He published a volume on Justification ; Antisynodalia, 
against the proceedings of the Synod held in Boston, in 1662 ; and some occasional Sei-mons. 

John Davenport, 1597-1670, the first minister of New Haven, celebrated as a pulpit orator, 
had some reputation also as an author. He published A Discourse about Civil Government 
in a NcAV Plantation, and The Saints' Anchor Hold. Davenport was educated at Oxford. 
Becoming a Non-conformist, he went in 163-3 to Holland, where he preached for some years 
to an English congregation. In 1637, he emigrated to Boston, and in 1638 was one of the 
company that settled NeAV Haven. He Avas minister of the church in New Haven for thirty 
years, and was mainly instrumental in the passage of the rigid laws on church-membership 
which prevailed in that colony. In 1661, he concealed the regicides, Whalley and Goffe, in 
his own house, and Avhen their pursuers were expected in Ncav Ha\en, he preached from the 
text, Isa. xvi. 3, 4, " Hide the outcasts ; bcAvray not him that wandereth. Let mine outcasts 
dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." 

John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians. 
John Eliot, 1604-1690, distinctively known in colonial annals as The 
Apostle to the Indians, has a place in literature by numerous religious 
works written in English, but chiefly by his translation of the Scriptures 
into the Indian tongue. 

There is no more beautiful picture in Ncav England colonial history than that of John 
Eliot, the saintly apostle to the Indians. Eliot, like most of the Massachusetts leaders, Avaa 
educated at Cambridge. Before leaving England, he was for a time engaged as usher in a 
classical school under Hooker, already noticed, Avho became so famous afterAvards in the 
annals of Connecticut. Eliot emigrated in 1631, and formed in Roxbury a settlement and 
church consisting of persons to whom he had preached before leaving England. His labors 
4 



38 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

in behalf of the ludians were conducted in connection with his duties as pastor of the church 
at R"xbury. He was first led to take a special interest in the Indians from a belief that they 
were the long lost Ten Tribes of Israel. Ue began preaching to the Indians in the neigh- 
borhood as early as 16-!6, and with such good effect that several settlements of "praying 
Indians'" were established, and the greatest hopes were entertained of converting and civil- 
izing the entire body of the natives. But the outbreak of King Philips war interrupted 
the good work, and brought it nearly to an end. 

Eliot lived to the age of eighty-six, and continued his pious and self-denying labors to the 
end. Among his latest efforts was an attempt to promote education among the negroes who 
had beeu imported into the colony. 

Eliot" s labors in behalf of the Indians led to the formation of the venerable Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in New England, in the maintenance of which the Hon. Robert 
Boyle took a prominent part. 

The works which Eliot prepared in the Indian tongue, a dialect of the Mohegan, were an 
Indian Grammar, and translations of The Bible, The Bay Psalm Book, two Catechisms (one 
for children and one for adults), Baxter's Call, The Sincere Convert, The Sacred Believer(two 
tracts by Thomas Shepard), and The Practice of Piety. 

Eliofs works in English were, The Christian Commonwealth, a treatise on government, 
framed for the Indian converts; The Communion of Churches; and The Harmony of the 
Gospels. He was also one of the three ministers who prepared the Bay Psalm Book. 

Eliot's Indian Bible was printed in 1658-1663, on the press which had 
been set up in the President's house at Cambridge in 1639, and was the first 
Bible printed in the Kew World. 

Cotton Mather gives the following specimen of Eliot's style of preaching. It is on the 
text, " Our conversation is in heaven :" 

" Behold, said he, the ancient and excellent character of a true Christian ; 'tis that which 
Peter calls ' holiness in all manner of conversation;' you shall not find a Christian out of 
the way of godly conversation. For, first, a seventh part of our time is all spent in heaven, 
when we are duly zealous for, and zealous on the Sabbath of God. Besides, God has written 
on the head of the Sabbath, Remember, which looks both forwards and backwards, and thus 
a good part ot the week will be spent in Sabbatizing. Well, but for the rest of our time! 
■\Vhy, we shall have that spent in heaven, ere we shall have done. For, secondly, we have 
many days for both fasting and thanksgiving in our pilgrimage ; and here are so many Sab- 
baths more. Moreover, tliirdly, we have our lectures every week ; and pious people won't 
miss them, if they can help it. Furthermore, fourthly, we have our private meetings, 
wherein we pray, and sing, and repeat sermons, and confer together about the things of God ; 
and being now come thus far, we are in heaven almost every day. But a little further, fifthly, 
we perform family duties every day ; we have our morning and evening sacrifices, wherein 
having read the Scriptures to our families, we call upon the name of God, and ever now and 
then carefull}' catechize those that are under our charge. Sixthly, we shall also have our 
daily devotions in our closets ; wherein unto supplications before the Lord, we shall add some 
serious meditation upon his word : a Daniel will be at this work no less than thrice a day. 
Seventhly, we have likewise many scores of ejaculations in a day ; and these we have, like 
Nehemiah, in whatever place we come into. Eighthly, we have our occasional thoughts and 
our occasional talks upon spiritual matters ; and we have our occasional acts of charity, 
wherein we do like the inhabitants of heaven every day. Ninthly, in our callings, in our 
civil callings, we keep up heavenly frames ; we buy and sell, and toil, yetu, we eat and drink, 
with some eye both to the command and honor of God in all. Behold, I have not now left 
an inch of time to be carnal ; it is all engrossed for heaven. And yet, lest there should not 
be enough, lastly, we have our spiritual warfare. We are always encountering the enemies 



THE ExlRLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 39 

of our souls, which continually raises our hearts unto our Helper and Leader in the heavens. 
Let no man say, ' "lis impossible to live at this rate; ' for we have known some live thus ; 
and othei-s that have written of such a life have but spun a web out of their own blessed 
experiences. New England has examples of this life ; though, alas ! 'tis to be lamented 
that the distractions of the world, in too many professors, do becloud the beauty of an 
heavenly conversation. In fine, our employment lios in heaven. In the morning, if we ask, 
' Where am I to be to-day ? ' our souls must answer, ' In heaven.' In the evening, if we ask, 
'Where have I been to-day? ' our souls may answer, 'In heaven.' If thou ait a believer, 
thou art no stranger to heaven while thou livest; and when thou diest, heaven will be no 
strange place to thee ; no, thou hast been there a thousand times." 

Daniel Gookin, 1 612-1687, wrote a valuable work. Historical Collections of the Indians in 
New England. Gookin settled originally in Yirginia, but finding himself more in sympathy 
with the Puritans, he removed to Massachusetts, and settled in Cambridge. He held several 
important civil oSSces, but is chiefly known by his services as Superintendent of all the In- 
dians who acknowledged the authority of Massachusetts. He was in warm sympathy with 
Eliot in the movements for Christianizing the natives. 

Richard Mather. 

Richard Mather, 1596-1669, eminent as a religious leader in tlie infant 
settlement, published several controversial treatises, and was one of the three 
ministers who prepared the famous Bay Psalm Book. 

Mather studied at Oxford, and took orders iu the Church of England. Being silenced for 
Non-conformity, he emigrated to Massachusetts in 1 €35, and became pastor of the new church 
at Dorchester. He was the father of the celebrated Increase Mather, and grandfather of the 
still more celebrated Cotton Mather. 

Capt. Roger Clap, 1609-1691, who emigrated in 1630, and settled in Dorchester, wrote an 
interesting volume of Memoirs. It was intended primarily for the benefit of his children, 
but has been found to be of public value, and has been five times reprinted. It has consid- 
erable literary merit, and being a record of events in which the writer was himself an actor 
and an eye-witness, has special historical value. 

Edward Johxsox, 1682, wrote a work called The Wonder Working Providence of 

Sion's Saviour, in New England, being a history of the country "from the English plant- 
ing in the year 1628 until the year 1652." Johnson was one of the emigrants who came over 
with Gov. Winthrop in 1630. He was a prominent man in the settlement of the town and 
church of Woburn. Johnson begins his book in the following pithy style: '"Good Reader : 
As large gates to small edifices, so are long prefaces to little books ; therefore I will briefly 
inform thee that here thou shalt find the time lohen, the manner how, the cause w}iy, and the 
great success which it hath pleased the Lord to give to this handful of his praising saints in 
New England." 

William Hubbard, 1621-1704, a member of the first graduating class 
of Harvard, 1642, wrote A Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians, and 
A History of New England. 

Mr. Hubbard was minister of the chuixh at Ipswich. The " Narrative " and several Ser- 
mons were published during his life. The State paid him £50 for his " History," which was 
used by Mather, Hutchinson, and others, and was pi-inted by the Mass. Historical Society 
in 181o. 



40 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Anne Bradstreet. 

Mrs. Anxe Bradstreet, 1612-1672, daughter of one and wife of another 
Governor of Massachusetts, published in 1640 a vokime of poems which 
were for the time in high repute, and won for her in England the title of 
the Tenth Muse. 

If a critic at this day finds it difficult to become euthusiastic over the poems of this lady, 
he can without trouble place her at the head of the American poets of her own time. The 
most distinguished men in the Colonies were her friends and the admirers of her genius. 
The title of her volume is worthy of being quoted, in illustration of the fashion of the time 
in such matters. Nowadays it would have been called The Four Elements and Other Poems, 
or some such fancy name. But in those stately days, a title-page was a serious matter. Mrs. 
Bradstreefs volume begins thus: "Several Poems, Compiled with great variety of Wit and 
Learning, full of Delight ; wherein especially is contained a Complete Discourse and Descrip- 
tion of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Moons and Seasons of the Year, together 
with an Exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz.. The Assyrian, Persian, and Gre- 
cian : and the Beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with 
Divers Other Pleasant and Serious Poems ; By a Gentlewoman of New England." 

Mrs. Bradstreet worthily stands at the head of the women writers of America. One of the 
descendants of Mrs. Bradstreet is Richard H. Dana, the well-known author. 

"The formal natural history and historical topics, which compose the greater part Of her 
writings, are treated with doughty resolution, but without much regard to poetical equality. 
The plan is simple. The elements of the world, fire, air, earth, and water; the humors of 
the constitution, the choleric, the sanguine, the melancholy, and phlegmatic ; childhood, 
youth, manhood, and age; spring, summer, autiunn, and winter, severally come up and say 
what they can of themselves, of their powers and opportunities, good and evil, with the ut- 
most fairness. The four ancient monarchies are catalogued in a similar way. It is not to 
be denied, that, if there is not much poetrj- in these productions, there is considerable in- 
formation. For the readers of those times they contained a respectable digest of the old 
historians, and a fair proportion of medical and scientific knowledge." — Duyckinck. 

The specimens quoted by Mr. Duj'ckinck fully sustain his rather disparaging judgment. 
Yet passages of a more pleasing kind are not wanting. 

FROM THE PROLOGUE TO "THE FOUR ELEMENTS." 
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue 

That says my hand a needle better fits; 
A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, 

For such despite they cast on female wits ; 
If what I do prove well, it won't advance — 
They '11 say, It 's stolen, or else it was by chance. 

But sure, the antique Greeks were far more mild, 

Else of our sex why feigned they those Nine, 
And Poesy made Calliope's own child? 

So, 'mongst the rest, they placed the arts divine. 
But this weak knot they will full soon untie — 
The Greeks did naught but play the fool and lie. 

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are; 

Men have precedency, and still excel ; 
It is but vain unjustly to wage war. 

Men can do best, and women know it well; 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 41 

Pre-eminence in each- and all is yonrs, 

Yet grant some small acknowledgment of oura. 

And oh, ye high-flown qnills that soar the skies, 
And even with your prey still catch your praise, 

If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes, 
Give thyme or parsley wreath : I ask no bays ; 

This mean and unrelined ore of mine 

Will make your glistering gold but more to shine. 

Peter Folger. 

Peter Folger, 1618-1690, one of the settlers of Nantucket, wrote a 
poem called A Looking-Glass for the Times, which has acquired some 
celebrity. 

Folger came to America in 1635, and settled first at Martha's Vineyard, but finally in 
Nantucket. He made himself proficient in the language of the Indians, and was serviceable 
to the missionary Mayhew, both as an interpreter and a catechist. He acquired considera- 
ble knowledge also of surveyiog, and was one of the commissioners for laying out land. His 
chief distinction, however, is that he was grandfather on the mother's side to Benjamin 
Franklin. Franklin thus refers to this fact in his Autobiography : 

" I was born in Boston, in New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, 
daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first colonists of New England, of whom Cotton Mather 
makes honourable mention in his Ecclesiastical History of that province, as a pious and 
learned Englishman, if I rightly recollect his expressions. I have been told of his having 
written a variety of little pieces; but there appears to be only one in print, which I met 
with many years ago. It was published in the year 1675, and is in faipiliar verse, agreeably 
to the tastes of the times and the country. The author addresses himself to the governors 
for the time being, speaks for liberty of conscience, and in favour of the Anabaptists, 
Quakers, and other sectaries, who had suffered persecution. To this persecution he attrib-' 
utes the wars with the natives, and other calamities which afflicted the country, regarding 
them as the judgments of God in punishment of so odious an offence, and he exhorts the 
government to the repeal of laws so contrary to charity. The poem appeared to be written 
with a manly freedom and a pleasing simplicity." — Fi-anklin's Autobiography. 

Michael Wigglesworth. 

Michael Wigglesworth, 1631-1705, was the author of two poems, — 
The Day of Doom, and Meat out of the Eater. 

Wigglesworth was graduated at Harvard in 1651, and was for nearly fifty years pastor of 
the church at Maiden. He was always in delicate health, " a little feeble shadow of a man," 
and his poems were written at times when by reason of bodily weakness he was obliged 
temporarily to discontinue his pastoral labors. The " Day of Doom " is a poetical description 
of the last Judgment ; " Meat out of the Eater " is a series of meditations showing the bene- 
fits of afBictions. Both poems went through several editions. 
4* 



42 AMEEICAN LITERATUEE, 



Samuel Willard. 

Saimtjel WiXLAKD, 1640-1707, who held a conspicuous position in the 
Boston churches and in the affairs of Harvard College, was the autlior of 
sundry religious works, including a Complete Body of Divinity, 

Willard was born at Concord, Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 
1659. lie was one of the co-pastors of the Old South Church, Boston. On the retirement 
of Increase Mather from the presidency of Harvai'd, in 1701, Willard succeeded to the gov- 
ernment of the institution, being nominally Vice-President, but virtually President, from 
1701 to 1707. 

Willard displayed much boldness in stemming the torrent of persecution during the 
witchcraft delusions. His published works are numerous. The following are a portion : 
A Complete Body of Divinity, in two hundred and fifty lectures on the Assembly's Shorter 
Catechism, folio, 914 pp.; Ne Sutor Ultra Crepidam, animadversions upon a publication of, 
the Anabaptists ; Peril of the Times Displayed; Covenant Keeping the Way of Blessedness ; 
The Mourner's Cordial against E.\.ce5sive Sorrow. 

Willard's Body of Divinity was the first regular and full treatise on theology, as well as 
the first folio volume, published in America. Willard was twice married, and he had twenty 
children. 

Willard was celebrated for his tact, accompanied occasionally with a touch of humor. 
The following instance is given. His son-in-law, Mr. Neal, on one occasion preached for 
him. The sermon was so poor that several of the congregation asked Willard not to invite 
the man to preach again. Willard some time afterwards borrowed the sermon and preached 
it himself, giving it the benefit of his fine delivery. The same persons who had asked that 
Mr. Neal should not preach to them, were so delighted with Mr. Willard's sermon that they 
asked a copy for publication ! 

Increase Mather. 

Increase Mather, D. D., 1639-1723, one of the most prominent figures 
in the early history of Massachusetts, was the author of a large number of 
works, among which may particularly be named that on Remarkable Provi- 
dences, and A History of the Wars with the Indians. 

Dr. Mather was born at Dorchester. He graduated at Harvard in 1656, and became 
pi'eacher in the old North Church in Boston. He died in his eighty-fifth year, and in the 
sixty-sixth of his ministry. He was President of Harvard during sixteen years of that time, 
I680-I7OI, and he exerted a commanding influence both in Church and State. Though 
mingling much in aff"aii-s, he was indefatigable as a student, passing two-thirds of the day 
among his books, and he left behind him no less than eighty-five publications, nio.stly religious 
and theological. The Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, sometimes quoted 
by its other title of Remarkable Providences, is a collection of remarkable c:ises bearing 
upon witchcraft, domouology, marvellous escapes at sea, etc. The phenomena therein de- 
scribed are attributed to the agency of the Devil. The work is interesting from its showing 
that many of the phenomena of spirit-rapping and the like were known and studied before 
their reappearance two centuries later. 

The latest work from his hand was Agathangelus, a preHxco to the Coelestiuus by his son 
Cotton Mather. The following passage will be read with interest : 

"The landscape of heaven here exhibited is drawn by one who, for two-and-forty years, 
has, as a son with a father, served me in the gospel. It will be much if these forty-two 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 43 

periods do not finish onr peregrinations together through the wilderness. For my ovrn 
part, I am everj- hour looking and longing for the pleasant land, where I am sure I shall 
not find things as I do here this day. And having been somewhat comforted and strength- 
ened by the prospect, which is here, as from the top of Mount Pisgah, taken of it, and en- 
tirely satisfied in it, I commend it as one of my legacies to the people of God, which I must 
leave behind me in a w^orld which has things come and coming upon it, Avhich blessed are 
they that are escaped from." 

Cotton Mather. 

Cotton Mather, D. D., 1663-1728, the greatest of the famous 
Mather family, is also in some respects the most conspicuous fig- 
ure in the early history of New England; and the Magnalia 
Christi Americana is, on the whole, the greatest, and the best 
known, of his almost interminable list of works. 

If there is anything in blood and breeding, Cotton Mather would peem 
to have had an hereditary right to be, as in fact he was, a theologian and a 
scholar. His father, Dr. Increase Mather, preacher of the Old North 
Church in Boston, and for sixteen years President of Harvard, while a 
sturdy champion of church prerogative and an ever busy manager of public 
affairs, was yet evidently a man of books, spending usually two-thirds of the 
day in his library. The grandfather, old Kichard Mather, the founder of 
the family in New England, though less conspicuous than some of his de- 
scendants, was yet a man of mark for his scholarly habits and attainments. 
The same is true, but in a still higher degree, of the grandfather on the 
mother's side, the " great John Cotton " of the infant colony. 

Cotton Mather was fitted for College with special care by Ezekiel Cheever, a pedagogue 
famous in New England annals, and was so precocious in his studies that at the age of twelve 
he " had read Cicero, Terence, and Tii-gil, the Greek Testament, and had entered upon Soc- 
rates [qr. Xenophon's Memorabilia] and Homer, and the Hebrew Grammar." He graduated 
with distinction at Harvard, at the age of fifteen. After spending some years in teaching, 
he was ordained at the age of twenty-one, preaching the first Sunday for his grandfather, 
Richard Mather, at Dorchester, the second Sunday for his father, and the third Sunday for 
his maternal grandfather, John Cotton, in Boston. Mather is said to have beerfc a divine 
almost from his cradle, and he early formed a habit, which adhered to him through life, of 
making a religious "improvement " of all the ordinary incidents of life. 

" This quaintness suited the genius of Mather. Every incident in life afforded him a text. 
He had a special consideration for the winding up of his watch. As he mended his fire, he 
thought of rectifying his life; the act of paring his nails warned him to lay aside 'all super- 
fluity of naughtiness;' while drinking a dish of tea 'he was especially invited to fragrant 
and grateful reflections.' He appropriated the time while he was dressing to particular 
speculations, parcelling out a diff"erent set of questions for every day in the week. On Sun- 
day morning he commented on himself, as pastor ; on Monday, iis husband and father; on 
Tuesday he thought of his relations, taking a catalogue which began with his parents and 
extended as far as the children of his cousin-germans, and by an odd distribution, inter- 
changing them sometimes with his enemies ; Wednesday he gave to the consideration of the 



44 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

church throughout the world ; on Thursday he turned over hia religious society efforts ; 
Fridaj' he devoted to the poor and suffering, and Saturday he concluded with his own spir- 
itual interests. To these devout associations he added the most humorous turns, not merely 
improving — a notion readily entertained — such similes of mortal affairs as the striking of 
a clock or the dying flame of a candle, but pinning his prayers on a tall man, that he might 
have high attainments in Christianity ; on a negro, that he might be washed white by the 
Spirit; on a very small man, that he might have great blessings ; upon a man on horseback, 
that as the creature served him, so he might serve the Creator." — Duyckinck. 

The one great blot in Cotton Mather's character was his infatuation on the subject of 
witchcraft, and the excessive zeal with which he defended and urged the persecution of 
those suspected of being witches. The error in his case seems to have grown out of his 
habit, already described, of carrying to excess the doctrine of a special providence. No one 
doubts, however, that he was thoroughly sincere and honest in what he wrote on this 
subject. 

Mather gives the following account of his literary and scientific attainments. The state- 
ment is fully borne out by what is known of him from other sources. " I am not unable, 
with a little study, to write in seven languages. I feast myself with the secrets of all the 
sciences which the more polite part of mankind admii-ingly pretend unto. I am entertained 
with all kinds of histories, ancient and modern ; I am no stranger to the curiosities which 
by all sorts of learning are brought to the curious." 

The list of his printed works, given by his son Samuel, numbers three hundred and eighty- 
two. Even this does not complete the list, several of his publications having been brought 
to light afterwards. Many of these, of course, were only tracts, or occasional sermons. But 
a large number of them were elaborate and stately volumes. Besides his published works, 
he left in manuscript one which has never been printed, and which is now to be seen in the 
library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in six volumes folio, " written in the author's 
round, exact hand, in double columns." It is called Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures, 
Portions of his Diary also are there, including the torn leaf, from which, according to his 
declaration, au invisible hand plucked a piece, before his eyes ! 

Mather's greatest work was his 3Ia(jnalia Christi Americana, purporting 
to be an ecclesiastical history of Kew England, from its first planting in 
1620 to the year 1698, but including also civil history, an account of Har- 
vard College, of the Indian wars, and the witchcraft troubles, and a large 
number of biograpliies. 

New England's worthies are indeed largely indebted for their perpetuity of fame to the 
embalming influence of Cotton Mather's genius and kindness of heart. These pen-portraits 
of his contemporaries are now among the most precious of all his writings. The poet Hal- 
leck thus refers to them : 

Genius ! powerful with thy praise or blame, 

"When art thou feigning? when art thou sincere? 
Mather, who banned his living friends with shame, 

In funeral sermons blessed them on their bier, 
And made their death-beds beautiful with fame — 

Fame true and gracious as a widow's tear 
To her departed darling husband given; 
Him whom she scolded up from earth to heaven. 
Thanks for his funeral sermons, they recall 

The sunshine smiling through his folio's leaves 
That makes his readers' hours in bower or hall 
Joyous as plighted hearts on bridal ovea; 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 45 

Chasing, like music from the soul of Saul, 

The doubt that darkens, and the ill that grieves; 
And honoring the author's heart and mind, 
That beats to bless, and toils to ennoble human kind. 

Mather's dying charge to his son Samuel, "Remember only that one word, Fructuosus" 
gives a key-note to an important part of his character. If ever a man was " fruitful," it was 
Cotton Mather. His industry was prodigious, and Avas almost continually occupied in 
something intended to benefit others. His "Essays to do Good" are mentioned by Franklin 
as among the few books that gave to his own mind its remarkable bent towards the useful. 
Franklin accompanies the statement with the following characteristic anecdote : 

"The last time I saw your father was in the beginuing of 1724, when I visited him after 
my first trip to Pennsylvania; he received me in his library, and on my taking leave, showed 
me a shorter way out of the house, through a narrow passage, crossed by a beam overhead. 
"NVe were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying me behind, and turning partly to- 
wards him, when he siiid hastily, 'Stoop, stoop ! ' I did not understand him till I felt my 
head hit against the beam. He was a man who never missed any occasion of giving instruc- 
tion ; and upon this he said ta me, ' You are young, and have the world before you; stoop as 
you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps.' This advice, thus beat into my 
head, has frequently been of iise to me ; and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, 
and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high." — Franklin. 

"Mather was always exercising his ingenuity to contribute something useful to the world. 
He was one of the first to employ the press extensively in the dissemination of tracts ; he 
early lifted his voice in favor of temperance; he preached and wrote for sailors; he in- 
structed negroes ; he substituted moral and sagacious intellectual restraints with his chil- 
dren for flogging; conversation he studied and practised as an art; and he was a devoted 
historiographer of his country for posterity — besides his paramount employment, accord- 
ing to the full measure of his day and generation, of discharging the sacred duties of his 
profession." — Duyckinck. 

After the Magnalia, Mather's next most important works are Memorable 
Providences relating to Witchcraft ; and The Wonders of the Invisible 
World, being an Account of the Trial of Several Witches. 

Mather published also a new literal version of the Psalms, in metre, but "without the 
jingle of rhyme," and intended as an improvement upon the old Bay Psalm Book. 

Minor Authors. 

Certain minor authors of this period deserve a brief passing notice. 

Robert Calef, 1719, a Boston merchant, is known chiefly by his book against Cotton 

Mather and other believers in witchcraft. When Mather published his Wonders of the In- 
visible World, Calef replied by More Wonders of the Invisible World. The reply excited 
great indignation, and was burned in the college-yard of old Harvard, by order of the Presi- 
dent.— Benjamin Thompson, 1640-1714, a graduate of Ilaiward, of the class of 1062, and Mas- 
ter, first of the public school in Boston, and afterwards of that in Cambridge, was, according 
to the inscription on his tombstone, a " learned schoolmaster " and " the renowned poet of 
New England." His chief production was a poem entitled "New England's Crisis." — John 
JossELTN, who first visited Boston in 1G3S and spent a year there, and afterwards, in IGGo- 
1071, spent eight years and a half there and elsewhere in New England, published several 
works descriptive of the country and its inhabitauta : New England's Rarities Discovered ; 



46 AMERICAN I. 1 T E K A T U K E . 

An Account of Two Yoyages to New England ; Chronological- Observations of America. — 
John Williams, 166i-1729, a native of RoxLury and a graduate of Harvard, was pastor of 
the church at Deerfield at the time that it was burnt by the French and Indians in 1704. 
Mr. Williams and abuut one hundred of his people were carried away captive to Montreal in 
midwinter. On his return from captivity, two or three years later, Mr. Williams published 
a narrative of the sufferings of himself and his companions. This work, callod The Re- 
deemed Captive, has been frequently reprinted, and is one of the most graphic pictures of 
simple-hearted heroism and constancy to be found in the early literature of New England. — 
Roger Wolcott, 1879-1767, a native of Windsor, Connecticut, had not the advantage of a 
liberal education, but rose to distinction, and filled various important offices in the colony, 
being at one time Governor of Connecticut. He wrote a volume of poems, called Poetical 
Meditations, and also a narrative and descriptive poem, being A Brief Account of the Agency 
of John Wintiirop in obtaining the Charter of Connecticut. — Captain Benjamin Church, 
1639-1718, the leader of the colonists in King Philip's war, dictated in his declining years an 
account of the memorable transactions in which he had been engaged. This is called The 
Entertaining History of King Philip's War. It is an important historical document, and 
has been several times reprinted. 

President Blair. 

James BiiAin, D. D., 1656-1743, the first President of AVilliam and Mary 
College, Virginia, published in 1722 an extended work with the title, Oiir 
Saviour's Sermon on the Mount. 

This work of President Blair's consisted of one hundred and seventeen sermons, in 5 vols., 
8vo, on texts in the Sermon on the Mount. It was reprinted in 1740, in 4 vols., with a pref- 
ace and high commendation by Dr. Waterland. ■' Blair's Commentary on Matthew v.-viii. 
is the best extant. He appears to have been a person of the utmost candor, and has solicit- 
ously avoided all unkind and contemptuous reflections on his brethren. He has an excel- 
lent way of bringing down criticism to common capacities, and has discovered a vast knowl- 
edge of Scripture in the aijplication of them." — Doddridge. "The best exposition of this 
discourse." — Biclccrsteth. 

President Blair was born and educated in Scotland, and took ordei's in the Scottish Epis- 
copal Church. Going to England, he was persuaded by the Bishop of London to emigrate 
to Virginia. He appears to have been a man of unusual ability, of great pui'ity of charac- 
ter, and of untiring perseverance. It was mainly by his continued and persistent efforts 
that the College of William and Mary was established and put on a permanent footing. He 
raised £2500 by subscription for its endowment, and was sent to England in 1692 by the 
General Assembly to obtain a charter. He was named as President in the charter itself, and 
held the ofBce until his death. He died in 1743, in his eighty-eiglith year. He was Com- 
missary of the Bishop of London for Virginia and Maryland, and in virtue of this office Avas 
a member of the Council of State. He was a clergyman over sixty years. Commissary fifty- 
four years, and President fifty j'ears. He was bui'ied in the churchyard at Jamestown. 

Col. William Byrd. . 

William Byrd, 1674-1744, a wealthy and accomplished Virginia gen- 
tleman, was the author of a number of narratives and descriptive pieces 
known as The Westover Manuscripts. 

Col. Byrd, being born to ample fortune, was sent to England to be educated. There ho 
became the intimate friend of Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrey, and of other eminent per- 
Bous,-and wa« elected Fellow of the Royal Society. On returning to Vii-ginia, he took au 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 47 

active part in public affairs, and was one of the leading men in the colony. In 1728, he set 
out with a party of commissioners to meet a party of commissioners from North Carolina, 
to survey and settle the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. The other Tir- 
ginia commissioners were AVilliam Dandridge and Richard Fitz-William. The surveyors 
were William Mayo and Alexander Irvin, the Mathematical Professor of William and 
Mary. They had with them, also, Rev. Peter Fountain as chaplain, and seventeen woodsmen 
and hunters. Col. Byrd took notes of the journey, and from them wrote out a Narrative. 
He wrote also Sketches of Travel in Old Virginia, on two other occasions. 

These important documents remained in manuscript until 1841, when they were printed 
by Edward Ruffin of Petersburg, under the title of The Westover Manuscripts, being so 
called from the estate of Westover, on the north branch of the James River, where the 
author lived. 

These journals of Col. Byrd are remarkable for the freshness and vividness of their de- 
scriptions, the quiet, gentlemanly air that pervades them, showing the author to be one 
equally at home among books and men, and for a continual undeixurrent of good-natured 
humor worthy of Irving or of Fielding. He is particularly fond of indulging in a bit of 
fun at the expense of the North Carolinians. 

The journals abound in stories illustrative of Natural History. A passage is quoted, 
giving some of his experiences with Bruin. 

ABOUT BEARS. 
" Our Indian killed a bear, two years old, that was feasting on grapes. He was very 
fat, as they generally are in that season of the year. In the fall, the flesh of this animal 
has a high relish, different from that of other creatures, though inclining nearest to that 
of pork, or rather of wild boar. A true woodsman prefers this sort of meat to that 
of the fattest venison, not only for the haul gout, but also because the fat of it is well 
tasted, and never rises in the stomach. Another proof of the goodness of this is, that it is 
less apt to corrupt than any other with which we are acquainted. As agreeable as such 
rich diet was to the men, yet we who were not accustomed to it, tasted it at first with some 
sort of squeamishness, that animal being of the dog kind ; though a little use soon recon- 
ciled us to this American venison. And that its being of the dog kind might give us the 
less disgust, we had the example of that ancient and polite people, the Chinese, who reckon 
dog's flesh too good for any under the quality of a Mandarin. This beast is in truth a very 
clean feeder, living, while the season lasts, upon acorns, chestnuts, and chinquapins, wild 
honey and wild grapes. They are naturally not carnivorous, unless hunger constrain them 
to it, after the mast is all gone, and the product of the woods is all exhausted. They are not 
provident enough to lay up any hoard, like the squirrels ; nor can they, after all, live veiy 
long upon licking their paws, as Sir John Mandevil and some other travellers tell us, but 
are forced in the winter months to quit the mountains, and visit the inhabitants. Their 
errand is then to surprise a poor hog at a pinch, to keep them from starving. And to show 
that they are not flesh-eaters by trade, they devour their prey very awkwardly. They do not 
kill it right out, and feast upon its blood and entrails, like other ravenous beasts, but hav- 
ing, after a fau- pursuit, seized it with his paws, they begin first upon the rump, and so de- 
vour one collop after another till they come to the vitals, the poor animal crying all the 
■while for several minutes together. However, in so doing, Bruin acts a little imprudently ; 
because the dismal outcry of the hog alarms the neighbourhood, and it is odds but he pays 
the forfeit with his life, before he can secure his retreat. But bears soon grow weary of this 
unnatural diet, and about January, when there is nothing to be gotten in the woods, they 
retire into some cave or hollow tree; where they sleep away two or three months very com- 
fortably. But then they quit their holes in March, when the fish begin to run up the rivers, 
on which they are forced to keep Lent, till some fruit or berry comes in seiison. But bears 
are fondest of chestnuts, which grow plentifully towards the mountains, upon very large 
trees, where the soil happens to be rich. We were curious to know how it happened that 



48 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

many of the outward branches of those trees came to be broken off in that solitary place, 
and were informed that the bears are so discreet as not to trust their unwieldy bodies on the 
smaller limbs of the tree, that would not bear their weight ; but after venturing as far as 
it is safe, which they can judge to an iuch, they bite off the end of the branch, which fall- 
ing down, they are content to finish their repast upon the ground. In the same cautious 
manner they secure the acorns that grow on the weaker limbs of the oak. And it must be 
allowed that, in these instances, a bear carries instinct a great way, and acts more reason- 
ably than many of his betters, who indiscreetly venture upon frail projects that will not 
bear them." — From Tlie Westover Manuscripts. 

Robert Beverly, 1716, was a native of Virginia and clerk of the Council when Andros 

was Governor, He wrote A History of the Present Slate of Alrginia, 1705. 

James Logan. 
James Loga>5", 1674-1751, a man of note in the early settlement of Penn- 
sylvania, was the founder of the Loganian Library in Philadelphia, and the 
author of several valuable works, both literary and scientific. 

Logan was an Irishman by birth. He distinguished himself in youth by his attainments 
in classics and mathematics, and was engaged for a time in teaching. Logan was a member 
of the Society of Friends, and in 1699 he came to America as Secretary to William P.enn, on 
the occasion of the second visit of the latter to his proviuce. Logan became Chief Justice 
of the colony and President of the Council. He was held in great respect, both by the 
colonists and the aborigines. The celebrated Indian chief, Logan, whose speech is given by 
Jefferson, was so named in honor of this'friend of William Penn. 

Logan communicated to learned men and societies abroad valuable scientific papers, mostly 
in Latin, which were published in London, Amsterdam, and Leyden. Besides these, he 
wrote in English The Duties of Man as they may be deduced from Nature ; A Defence of 
Aristotle and the Ancient Philosophers (unfinished) ; Essaj-s on Languages and the Antiqui- 
ties of the British Isles ; and several translations fi'om the Greek and Latin classics. 

Logan passed the closing years of his life in retirement, at Stanton, his country-seat near 
Germantown. While there he wrote a translation of Cicero's essay On Old Age, with 
numerous explanatory notes. This was printed in 1744 by Franklin, with the following 
characteristic preface : 

THE PRINTER TO THE READER. 

"This version of Cicero's tract De Senectute was made ten years since, by the honorable 
and learned Mr. Logan, of this city ; undertaken partly for his own amusement (being then 
in his sixtieth year, which is said to be neaily the age of the author when he wrote it), but 
principally for the entertainment of a neighbor, then in his grand climacteric ; and the notes 
were drawn up solely on that neighbor's account, who was not so well acquainted as him- 
self with the Roman history and language. Some other friends, however (among whom I 
had the honor to be ranked), obtained copies of it in MS., and, as I believed it to be in itself 
equal at least, if not far preferable, to any other translation of the same piece extant in our 
language, besides the advantage it has of so many valuable notes, which at the same time 
they clear up the text, are highly instructive and entertaining, I resolved to give it an im- 
pression, being confident that the public would not unfavorably receive it. 

"A certain freedman of Cicero's is reported to have said of a medicinal well, discovered in 
his time, wonderful for the virtue of its waters in restoring sight to the aged, that it was a 
gift of the bountiful gods to man, to the end that all might now have the pleasure of read- 
ing his master's works. As that well, if still in being, is at too great a distance for our use, 
I have, gentle reader, as thou seest, printed this piece of Cicero's in a large and fair char- 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 49 

acter, that those who begin to think on the subject of Old Age (which seldom happens till 
their sight is somewhat impaired by its approach), may not, in reading, by the pain small 
letters give to the eyes, feel the pleasure of the mind in the least allayed. 

" I shall add to these few lines my hearty wish, that this first translation of a classic in 
this Western World may be followed with many others, performed with equal judgment 
and success ; and be a happy omen that Philadelphia shall become the seat of the American 
muses." 

Franklin was mistaken in calUng this " the first translation of a classic in this Western 
World," Sandys's Ovid having been written on the banks of the James River, in Virginia, 
more than a century before. Logan's work may have been, however, the first translation of 
a classic printed in America. Logan's translation is spoken of in high terms, and is consid- 
ered the best before that of Melmoth. 



Thomas Chalkley. 

Thomas Chalkley, 1675-1749, another eminent Friend, was the author 
of a series of religious Tracts, and of a Journal containing an account of 
his experiences as an itinerant preacher. 

Chalkley was born in Southwark, London. Coming to America, he made Philadelphia his 
headquarters, but spent the greater part of his life in travelling through New England, the 
Southern States, the West Indies, and elsewhere, as a voluntary missionary, preaching the 
gospel. His writings are remarkable for their unpretending simplicity, and often for an un- 
afi"ected pathos and beauty. 

On one occasion, at sea, provisions became scanty, and there began to be ominous talk 
among the crew " about eating one another," and Chalkley, to whom the vessel had been 
consigned, was upbraided for their distress. 

" To stop this murmuring," he says, " I told them they should not need to cast lots, 
which was usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely offer up my 
life to do them good. One said, ' God bless you ! I will not eat any of you.' Another said, 
' He would die before he would eat any of me ; ' and so said several. I can truly say, on 
that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to me, and that I was serious and ingenuous 
in my proposition : and as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully consider- 
ing my proposal to the companj', and looking in my mind to Him that made me, a very 
large dolphin came up towards the top or surface of the water, and looked me in the face ; 
and I called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take him, for here is one come to re- 
deem me (I said to them). And they put a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it ; 
and they caught him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six feet long, and 
the largest that ever I saw. Tliis plainly showed us that we ought not to distrust the 
providence of the Almighty. The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and 
murmured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of till we got into the capes of 
Delaware." 

The following are the titles of some of his Tracts : God's Great Love unto Mankind 
through Jesus Christ our Lord; Observation on Christ's Sermon on the Mount ; Youth Per- 
suaded to Obedience, Gratitude, and Honor to God and their Parents, etc. 

The first of these Tracts is introduced with the following hues, which give an idea both 
of his style and of his true and loving spirit. 

"In sincerity and unfeigned love, both to God and man, were these lines penned. I de- 
sire thee to peruse them in the same love, and then, pcradventure, thou mayst find some 
sweetness in them. Expect not learned phrases, or florid expressions ; for many times heav- 
6 D 



60 ' AMERICAN LlTETwlTUIlE. 

enly matter is hid in mean sentences, or To-apped up in mean expressions. It sometimes 
pleases God to reveal the mysteries of his kingdom (through the grace of his Son our Lord 
Jesus Christ) to babes and sucklings ; and he oftentimes ordains praise out of their mouths ; 
one of which, reader, I desire thou mayst be. My intent in writing these' sheets is that 
they, through the help of God's grace and the good spirit of Christ, may stir up true love in 
thee ; first to God and Christ, and then to man ; so thou wilt be fit to be espoused to him, 
who is altogether lovely, (that is Christ,) which is the desire of him who is thy friend, more 
in heart than word." 

John Woolman. 

John WooiiMAN, 1720-1772, a native of New Jersey, and a noted 
preacher among the Friends, is favorably known in letters by his Essays 
and Epistles, but more particularly by his Journal. 

TVoolman was bom in Northampton, Burlington Co., New Jersey. After exercising for 
some time his craft as a tailor, he travelled on religious visits to various parts of America, 
and finally died of the small-pox at York. England, where he was attending a Quarterly 
Meeting of the Friends. He wrote Essays and Epistles on various religious and moral sub- 
jects, but is most known by his Journal, which is admirable equally for its spirit and its 
style. It has lately been republished, being edited with pious and loving care by the poet 
Whittier. Charles Lamb says, in one of the Essays of Elia, "Get the writings of John Wool- 
man by heart, and learn to love the early Quakers." 

Aquila Rose. 

Aqtjila Kose, 1695-1723, who was Clerk of the Assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania, was the author of a volume called Sundry Poems, and seems to have 
been a man of more than ordinary promise. 

Rose was born and educated in England. Although be died when only twenty-eight, he 
seems to have made a profound impression upon the Philadelphians of that day, by his poet- 
ical abilities and his scholarly attainments. The following lines by Rose, written "for the 
boys who carried out the weekly newspaper," and bearing date 1720, give some evidence 
of his style, and also show that the American custom of Carriers' Addresses on New Year's 
day goes back to a very respectable antiquity. 

Full fifty times have roul'd their changes on, 

And all the year's transactions now are done; 

Full fifty times I've trod with eager haste, 

To bring you weekly news of all things past. 

Some grateful thing is due for such a task, 

Tho' modesty itself forbids to ask ; 

A silver thought, expressed in ill-shaped ore, 

Is all I wish ; nor would I ask for more. 

To grace our work, swift Mercury stands in view 

I 've been a Living Merc'ry still to you. 

The happy day, Dear Sir, appears ag'in. 
When human nature lodg'd a God within. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 51 

Yet whilst with gen'rous breath, you hail the day, 
And like the shepherds, sacred homage pay, 
Let gen'rous thought some kindly grace infuse, 
To him who brings, with careful speed, your News. 

Samuel Keimer. 

Samtjel Keimer, who flourished in Philadelphia about the years 1720- 
1730, wrote several pieces, half poetical, half doggerel, which are note- 
worthy as a feature in the literature of the day. 

Keimer came from England to Philadelphia, and was about establishing himself as a 
printer there at the time of Franklin's arrival on the same errand. Keimer was an odd 
genius, with more ability than discretion. After plying his trade for some time in Philadel- 
phia, he went to the West Indies, where he is found in 1734 as the printer of The Barhadoes 
Gazette. He got himself into hot water among the planters, and finally returned to England. 

Cadwallader Golden. 

Cadwallader Golden, M. D., 1688-1776, was the earliest author of note 
in the city of New York, of those at least who wrote in English. 

Golden was a Scotchman by birth. He was graduated in 1705 at the University of Edin- 
burgh, and then spent three years in studying medicine. He emigrated to America in 1708, 
and settled in Philadelphia, where he practised medicine with success for several years. In 
1715, he visited London, where he made the acquaintance of Halley the astronomer, who 
read before the Royal Society a paper of Colden's with great applause. In 1718, he settled 
in New York, and quitting his profession gave himself up to public affairs, holding at differ- 
ent times various important ofiBces. He was lieutenant-governor from 1760 until his death 
in 1776. 

Colden's chief work was A History of the Five Indian Nations, which has been several 
times reprinted, both in England and Amei-ica. He wrote also a philosophical treatise, On 
the Principles of Action in Matter, and numerous scientific papers. He was much devoted 
to Botany, and was a correspondent of Linnaeus, Buffon, and other eminent scientists. He 
took an active part in the formation of the American Philosophical Society. 

Thomas Prince, 1687-1758, was a native of Sandwich, Massachusetts, and a graduate of 
Harvard, of the class of 1707. He was one of the pastors of the Old South Church, Boston. 
He made a valuable collection of documents in regard to the early history of New England. 
The manuscripts, which were deposited in the tower of the Old South Church, were de- 
stroyed by the British during the revolutionary war. Prince wrote A Chronological History 
of New England in the Form of Annals. It was not completed, coming down only to 1633. 

Samuel Mather, D. D., 1706-1785, a son of Cotton Mather, was educated at Harvard, and 
was pastor of the Old North Church in Boston. He published a number of sermons, tracts, 
etc. The most curious of his works is An Attempt to Show that America was known to the 
Ancients, maintaining that the posterity of Japhet by Magog were the primary inhabitants 
of the continent. He was also the author of a Life of Cotton Mather. 

Solomon Stoddard, 1643-1729, was born in Boston, and graduated at Harvard, in the class 
of 1662, He was a divine of high repute, and was settled for many years at Northampton, 
Mass. He wrote a work, The Doctrine of Instituted Cliurches, intended to show that the 
Lord's Supper is a converting ordinance. Some of his other pieces were, An Appeal to the 



52 AMERICAN LITERATUKE. 

Learned ; A Guide to Christ ; Answer to Cases of Conscience ; Questions on the Conversion 
of the Indians, etc. 

Samuel Johnson, D. D., 1696-1722, is styled by Dwight the father of 
Episcopacy in Connecticut. 

Johnson was a native of Guilford, in Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College, in the 
class of 1714. Becoming a convert to Episcopacy, he went to England for Episcopal ordina- 
tion in 1722, and returned the next year as a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation 
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at Stratford. Here he was instrumental not only in build- 
ing up a parish, but in extending Episcopacy throughout the colony. 

He was a man of distinguished attainments and ability, and upon the establishment of 
lung's (now Columbia) College, New York, he was chosen President, — but ret'redfinally to 
his original charge in Stratford. He published several works, among them, A System of 
Morality ; a Compendium of Logic ; an English and a Hebrew Grammar ; and various con- 
troversial tracts in favor of Episcopacy. 

John Seeeomb. 
John Seccoiveb, 1708-1792, gained considerable notoriety by a witty 
poem, called Father Abbey's Will. 

Seccomb was a native of Medford, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1728. He was 
minister of the town of Harvard for more than twenty years. In 1757, he became minister 
of a congregation in Nova Scotia, where he remained until his death, at the age of eighty- 
four. 

Father Abbey's Will was published in 1732, soon after the author's graduation. Governor 
Belcher sent a copy of the poem to England, where it was published in the Gentleman's 
Magazine. It has been often reprinted, and is one of the best comic poems of that day. The 
real name of the hero was Matthew Abdy, who was for many years " Bedmaker and Sweeper " 
to Harvard College, and whose wife succeeded him in that vocation. She died in 1762, at the 
advanced age of ninety-three. Besides this poem, part of which we quote, Seccomb wrote 
another of the same sort, purporting to be a letter from the " Bedmaker and Sweeper " of 
Yale to the heiress, the widow Abbey, and begging her to unite her fortunes with his. 

FATHER ABBEY'S WILL. 

Cambridge, December, 1730. 
Some time since died here, Mr. Matthew Abbey, in very advanced age. He had for a great 
number of years served the College in quality of Bedmaker and Sweeper. Having no child, 
his wife inherits his whole estate, which he bequeathed to her by his last will and testa- 
ment, as follows, viz. : 

To my dear wife, Two painted chairs. 

My joy and life. Nine warden pears, 

I freely now do give her A large old dripping platter, 
My whole estate, This bed of hay. 

With all my plate, On which I lay. 

Being just about to leave her. An old saucepan of batter. 

My tub of soap, A little mug, 

A long cart rope, A two-quart jug, 

A frying-pan and kettle, A bottle full of brandy. 
An ashes pail, A looking glass, 

A threshing-flail. To see your face. 

An iron wedge and beetle. You '11 find it very handy. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 53 

A musket true This is my store, 

As ever flew, I have no more, 

A pound of shot and wallet, I heartily do give it; 
A leather sash, My years are spun, 

My calabash. My days are done. 

My powder-horn and bullet. And so I think to leave it. 

Thus Father Abbey left his spouse 
As rich as church or college mouse, 
Which is suflBcient invitation 
To serve the college in his station. 

Charles Chatinct, t). D., 1705-1787, a great-grandson of the Charles Chauncy who was the 
second President of Harvard, was a native of Boston, and was for sixty years minister to the 
first church in that city. He entered college at twelve, and graduated with high honor at 
sixteen. Dr. Chauncy had a great reputation as a theologian, but was opposed to all orna- 
ment in writing or speaking. He bitterly opposed the preaching of Whitefield, as being what 
would now be called "sensational," and wished some one would translate Paradise Lost 
into prose, that he might understand it. He was a man of the most uncompromising integ- 
rity and independence, and made no hesitation in openly rebuking the General Court, for 
its political delinquencies. His principal publications were : On the Various Gifts of Minis- 
ters ; On Enthusiasm ; On the Outpourings of the Holy Ghost ; An Account of the French 
Prophets ; Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New" England; The Validity of 
Presbyterian Ordination; Remarks on a Sermon of the Bishop of Llandafif; The Mystery 
Hid from the Ages ; The Fall of Man and its Consequences, etc. 

John Callender, 1706-1748, is a man of some note, as being the first historian of Rhode 
Island. He published in 1739 A Centennial Discourse, giving a history of the civil and re- 
ligious affairs of Rhode Island, from its first settlement, in 1638, to 1738, or the end of the 
first century. Callender was a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard. He was a Bap- 
tist minister, and a man of fine literary tastes. He was connected with Berkeley in the 
formation of a Literary and philosophical society at Newport. 

Mrs. Jane Turell, 1708-1735, who was noted for her extraordinary precocity of intellect, 
left in manuscript a number of poems, which were collected and published by her husband. 
These pieces show a refined taste and varied reading, and no little of genuine poetic fire. — 
Rev. Ebexezer Turell, 1702-1778, husband of the lady just named, and pastor of Medford 
for over fifty years, published Memoirs of Mrs. Turell, A Life of Benjamin Coleman, D. D., 
Mrs. Turell's father, and left in manuscript an ingenious work on witchcraft. 



President Clap. 

Eev. Thomas Clap, 1703-1767, one of the early Presidents of Yale Col- 
lege, eminent for his attainments in science and letters, was the author of 
several valuable works. 

President Clap entered upon the Presidency in 1739, and continued to discharge its duties 
with signal ability for twenty-seven years, resigning the office in 1766, a few months before 
his death. His published works are An Essay on the Religious Condition of Colleges ; A 
Vindication of the Doctrines of New England Churches; An Essay on the Nature and Foun- 
dation of Moral Virtue and Obligation ; A History of Yale College ; Conjectures on the 
Nature and Motion of Meteors above the Atmosphere, etc. 

6* 



54 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



President Dickinson. 

Key. Jonathan Dickinson, 1688-1747, first President of the College 
of New Jersey, was an eloquent preacher and a writer of acknowledged 
ability. 

President Dickinson was for forty years pastor of tlie first Presbyterian Chuich in Eliz- 
abethtown, which place was then the chief town in New Jersey. The College was first 
chartered in 1746, and was organized and opened at Elizabethtown in 1747. Dickinson was 
a leading man in getting the charter, and in the movement which led to the establishment 
of the College. He was a native of Hatfield, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Yale, in the 
class of 1706. He published many sermons and theological treatises, and a volume of 
Familiar Letters upon Important Subjects in Religion. 



President Burr. 

Aaron Bubr, 1716-1757, second President of the College of New Jersey, 
was a man of no little note as a writer. 

President Burr's chief publications were A Treatise on the Supreme Deity of Our Lord 
'Jesus Christ ; A Fast Sermon on the Encroachments of the French ; The Watchman's Answer 
to the Question, " What of the Night ? " A Funeral Sermon on Governor Belcher, and some 
other occasional sermons. 

President Burr was a native of Fairfield, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, of the class 
of 1735. He was a son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, and father of the Aaron Burr who fig- 
ured so largely in political affairs. He was celebrated as a preacher, but was still more dis- 
tinguished for his executive ability. President Edwards, when elected afterwards to the 
same office, expressed great reluctance to accept, on account of having to come after a man 
of such great and varied ability ; and Governor Livingstone pronounced a glowing eulogium 
upon him. All the contemporary accounts show that he was a man of extraordinary abil- 
ities. 

President Ed^wards. 

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, third President of the College 
of New Jersey, is considered the greatest metaphysician that America has 
produced, and one of the greatest that has ever lived. His works are nu- 
merous and varied, but that by which he is most known is his essay on The 
Will. 

President Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut ; and graduated at Yale, at the age 
of sixteen, and in the class of 1720. Before completing his nineteenth year he began preach- 
ing in New York city, to a congregation of Presbyterians. He was next tutor for two years 
in Yale, and then settled as pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts. There, after minister- 
ing for twenty-three years with great zeal, he was involved in difficulties by attempting to 
carry out the views which he held in regard to the religious character of those who 
approached the Communion. At a meeting of his church to decide this question, he was 
out-voted by a large majority. He went then to Stockbridge, in the western part of the 
State, and preached as a missionary to the Indians who occupied that part of the country, 
and to the whites that lived among them. While thus engaged, he was elected President 
of the College at Princeton, New Jersey, to which place he went in January, 1758. He died 
there of small-pox, after a residence of about two months. 



THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD. 55 

President Edwards's greiitest work, On the Freedom of the Will, was written during the 
time that iie was ineacliiiig to the Stockbridge Indians. His other works are exceedingly 
numerous, and several of them are second in value and importance only to that on the Will. 
Many of them still remain in manuscript. The best edition of those published is in 10 vols., 
8vo. Those with which the public are most familiar are: The lleligious Affections; The 
History of Redemption ; The Doctrine of Original Sin ; The True Nature of Christian Virtue ; 
The End for which God Created the World ; A Narrative of the Work of God in the Conver- 
sion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton ; Thoughts on the Revival of Religion ; Life 
of David Brainerd, etc. 

The fervor of Edwards's piety was equal to the profoundness of his intellect. Those 
abstruse speculations of his, on the deepest questions of logic and metaphysics with which 
the human mind is ever called to grapple, were wrought out in the midst of abounding pas- 
toral labor and the excitements of a great religious revival ; and the ablest and subtlest of 
them all was produced in the midst of a mission among savages, and while so straitened for 
the means of living that his wife and daughters had to help out his scanty income by send- 
ing their delicate handiwork to Boston for sale. 

"This remarkable man, the metaphysician of America, was formed among the Calvinists 
of New England, when their stern doctrine retained its rigorous authority. His power of 
subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in 
some of the ancient mystics, with a character which raised his piety to fervor." — Sir James 
Mackintosh. 

"I consider Jonathan Edwards the greatest of the sons of men. He ranks with the high- 
est luminaries of the Christian church, not excluding any country, or any age, since the 
Apostolic." — Robert Had. 

" The Inquiry into the Will is a most profound and acute disquisition. The English Cal- 
vinists have produced nothing to be put into competition with it." — .Sir James Mackintosh. 

" In all the branches of theology, didactic, polemic, casuistic, experimental, and practical, 
he had few equals, and perhaps no superior. The number and variety of his works show the 
intenseness of his industry and the uncommon strength of his intellectual powers. The 
Inquiry into the Will is a masterly work, which, as a specimen of exact analysis, of pro- 
found or perfect abstraction, of conclusive logic, and of calm discussion, will long support 
its high reputation." — Lowndes. 

" He was commanding as a pulpit teacher, not for grace of person ; he was slender and shy ; 
not for elocution ; his voice was thin and weak ; not for any trick of style ; no man more 
disdained and trampled on it : — but from his immense preparation, long forethought, sedu- 
lous writing of every word, touching earnestness and holy life. He was not a man of com- 
pany; he seldom visited his hearers. Yet there was no man whose mental power wius 
greater. Common consent set him at the head of his profession. Even in a time of rapture 
and fiery excitement he lost no influence. The incident is familiar of his being called on a 
sudden to take the place of Whitefield, the darling of the people, who failed to appear when 
a multitude were gathered to hear him. Edwards, unknown to most iu person, with un- 
feigned reluctance, such a.s a vainer man might feel, rose before a disappointed assembly and 
proceeded with feeble manner to read from his manuscript. In a little time the audience 
was hushed ; but this was not all. Before they were aware, they were attentive and soon 
enchained. As was then common, one and another in the outskirts would arise and stand ; 
numbers arose and stood; they came forward, they pressed upon the centre; the whole 
assembly rose; and before he concluded, sobs burst from the convulsed throng. It was the 
power of fearful argument." — Dr. James Alexander, 



56 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



President Davies. 

Key. SAMUEii Davies, 1723-1761, fourtli President of the College of 
New Jersey, was in his day the most famous preacher in America. 

The traditions in regard to the power of President Davira as a pulpit orator fully equal 
those in regard to the popular and forensic eloquence of Patrick Henry. Davies was a 
native of Newcastle County, Delaware, but his preaching was chiefly in Virginia. A collec- 
tion of his Sermons was published in London, in 5 vols., 8vo. They have been frequently 
reprinted. The latest edition, New York, 1851, in 3 vols., contained a Memoir on the Life and 
Times of the Author, by Albert Barnes. Davies's Sermons are to this day among the most popu- 
lar to be found in that class of literature. He was only about eighteen months President 
of the College, being cut off by death in the midst of his career of usefulness), yet even in 
that short time he did considerable to elevate the standard of scholarship in the College. 
President Davies was the author of a number of excellent Hymns, some of which hold their 
place in the hymnals of the present day. 

President Finley. 

SAjyiUEL Finley, D. D., 1715-1766, fifth President of the College of 
New Jersey, did not publish much, but had the reputation of being a man 
of superior ability, both as a scholar and a writer. 

President Finley was a native of Armagh, Ireland. He emigrated to Philadelphia in 1734, 
and was ordained by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, in 1740. He was actively engaged 
with Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent in the great revival of that day. After preaching for 
some time in Philadelphia and in different parts of New Jersey, he was settled for seven 
years in Nottingham, Maryland, where he established an Academy, and was held in high 
estimation. From Nottingham, he proceeded to the Presidency in 1761. He published a 
considerable number of Sermons, one of which, on the character of President Davies, is pre- 
fixed to the works of the latter. 

The Tennents. — Gilbert Tennent, 1703-1764, was bom in Ireland, and emigrated to 
America in 1718. He was settled from 1726 to 1743 over a Presbyterian church in New 
Brunswick, New Jersey, and from 1743 to 1764 over the Second Presbyterian Church in 
Philadelphia, the one gathered by the preaching of Whitefield. He published three vol- 
umes of Sermons, and some separate discourses. — William Tennent, 1705-1777, a brother of 
Gilbert, and a native of Ireland, emigrated to America at the same time with his brother. 
William \v;is settled over the Presbyterian church at Freehold, New Jersey. He published 
some separate Sermons, but no volume. He is chiefly noted for having been three days in a 
trance, and for the many speculations among theologians, to which his trance gave rise. 
Both the Tennents were connected with the revival movements of Whitefield. 




CHAPTER II. 

The Revolutionary Period. 

The political ferment which ended in the war for independence 
and the establishment of a separate nationality gave a peculiar 
type to the literature of the time. The agitation spoken of be- 
gan as early as 1760, and did not end before the close of the cen- 
tury. This period, therefore, from 1760 to 1800, forms the limits 
of our Second Chapter. 

The battle of the Eevolution was fought by the pen as well as by the 
sword. The leaders in the fight against the mother country had, not only 
to argue their case before the tribimal of the world, but to educate their own 
countrymen up to the point of armed resistance, and to hold them there 
during a long an4 gloomy contest. After the war was over, there was the 
not less grave and difficult task of guiding the opinions of the nation and of 
moulding the political elements into form and symmetry. 

In the accomplishment of this great and varied work, the political writers 
of the period used freely almost every variety of style that could be made 
available for the purpose. They made grave and formal argument ; they 
employed also warm and patriotic appeal. The philippics of Patrick Henry, 
Otis, and the elder Adams were ably seconded by wit and song from Freneau, 
Brackenridge, and Hopkinson. They roused their own side by patriotic 
ballads, they stung the enemy with squibs. The wit of the revolutionary 
period, though not perhaps of a very high order of literature, was yet no 
insignificant part of the moral force by which the war of independence was 
brought to a successful termination. 

In treating of the literature of this period, it is not practicable to divide 
it into distinct sections, for the reason that most of those wlio wrote much 
wrote in a great variety of cliaracters ; grave and lumiorous, " prosing and 
versing." In the main, however, those writers will be mentioned first wlio 



58 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

by their pens engaged actively in the political struggle. After them -will 
come those who during the same period contributed to the general current 
of literature, but who did not engage directly in political and partisan dis- 
cussions. 

Benjamin Franklin. 

Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, may be viewed under three 
aspects, — as a sage, a statesman, and a man of science; in each 
aspect, hie stands among tlie first men of all time. 

Franklin's writings, which are numerous, filling 10 octavo volumes, 
consist, 1. Of his Autobiography and of Essays on Moral and Eeligious 
Subjects and the Economy of Life ; 2. Of Essays on Politics, Commerce, 
and Political Economy ; 3. Of Papers on Electricity and other Scientific 
and Philosophical Subjects. 

The following is a more detailed enumeration of the subjects, as given in the edition of 
his works by Mr. Sparks : 1. Autobiography ; 2. Essays on Moral and Religious Subjects and 
the Economy of Life; 3. Essaj^s on General Politics, Commerce, and Political Economy; 4. 
Essays and Tracts, Historical and Political, before the American Revolution; 5. Political 
Papers during and after the American Revolution ; 6. Letters and Papers on Electricity : 
7. Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects ; 8. Correspondence. 

Franklin was born in Boston. His schooling was limited to the common English branches. 
At the age of ten, he was taken from school, and placed in the shop of his father, a tallow- 
chandler, and set "at cutting wicks for the candles, filling moulds for cast candles, attend- 
ing the shop, going of errands, etc." The occupation was so distasteful that he formed the 
design of going to sea. To prevent such a result, he was apprenticed to learn the trade of a 
printer of an older brother, who had a printing-office in Boston. This employment was 
congenial to Franklin's tastes, and he acquired a knowledge of the art with great rapidity. 
The work brought him also into communication with books, and he spent his leisure hours 
in eagerly reading whatever he could find that was suited to his tastes. Among the books 
which he thus read, and which exerted a powerful influence over him were Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress, Plutarch's Lives, an odd volume of The Spectator, and Cotton Mather's Way to Do 
Good. 

The brother and he not getting on pleasantly together, Benjamin, at the age of seventeen, 
left Boston and went to Philadelphia. At the latter place he found employment as a jour- 
neyman printer. Meeting with some encouragement, he determined, when about twenty- 
one years of age, to open a printing-oflBce on his own account, and proceeded to London to 
procure the type and other necessary materials. Not being able to effect the purchase, he 
remained nearly two years in London, practising his trade as a journeyman printer. While 
there, he published a Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, which attracted some attention. 

On returning to Philadelphia, Franklin, by the aid of some friends, established a printing- 
office, and at the same time bought out a newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, which he 
continued for many years to publish, and which by his business sagacity and his talents as 
a writer he made a source both of profit and of influence. 

Franklin began about the same time the publication of an annual almanac, purporting to 
be written by Richard Saunders, and commonly known as Poor Richard's Almanac. It con- 
tained, besides the matters customary in such publications, a series of pithy sayings in 
regard to economy and thrift and the minor morals of life. The Almanac was exceedingly 
popular, and waa continued for twenty-six years. Some of the best things that Franklin 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 59 

ever wrote, and that have since become proverbs among all English-speaking people, ap- 
peared first in this Ahnanac. 

By his paper and his other publications, and by his personal character, Franklin acquired 
a great and constantly growing influence, both social and political. He was mainly instru- 
mental in founding, in 1731, the Philadelphia Library ; in 1743, the American Philosophical 
Society; and in 1749, the Academy out of which grew the University of Pennsylvania. 

Franklin held various important public ofiices, both in Pennsylvania and under the 
general government, and was one of the leaders of public opinion in all the controversies 
between the Colonies and the mother country ; and he was, on different occasions, sent to 
England as agent for the colonial Assembly. He was a prominent member of the Continental 
Congress, and was one of a committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence ; he 
negotiated the Treaty with France, which contributed largely to the achievement of inde- 
pendence ; he was one of the three commissioneitj who negotiated the Treaty of Peace, in 
1783 ; and, finally, he was a delegate to the Convention by whom the Constitution of the 
United States was drafted, after the war was over. 

During all the time that Franklin was thus engaged in public affairs, he found the leisure 
to pursue the philosophical investigations which have made his name famous, and also to 
write those numerous essays on familiar subjects which by their simplicity and wisdom have 
excited the marvel of mankind. 

In his youth, while following his trade as a printer, Franklin one day amused himself by 
composing the following Epitaph, which has often been quoted :; 

The Body 

of 

Benjamin Franklin, 

Printer. 

(Like the cover of an old book, 

Its contents torn out, 

And stript of its lettering and gilding,) 

Lies here, food for worms. 

Yet the work itself shall not be lost, 

For it will, as he believed, appear once more, 

In a new 

And more beautiful edition. 

Corrected and amended 

By 

The Author. 

During the sessions of the Convention which framed The Constitution of the United States, 
Franklin made the following brief, but memorable speech, on the propriety of public prayer 
by bodies engaged in the affairs of state : 

PRAYER IN PUBLIC COUNCILS. 

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of 
danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection. Our 
prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who 
were engaged in this struggle must have observed frequent instances of a 



60 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

superintending Providence in our favour. To that kind Providence we owe 
this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing 
our futui-e national felicity. And have we now forgotten this powerful 
friend ? or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance ? I have lived, 
sir, a long time, (eighty-one years;) and the longer I live the more convinc- 
ing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of man. And 
if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that 
an empire can rise without His aid ? We have been assured, sir, in the 
sacred writings, " that except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain 
that build it." I firmly believe this ; and I also believe that without His 
concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the 
builders of Babel : we shall be divided by our little partial local interests ; 
our projects will be confounded ; and we ourselves shall become a reproach 
and a byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may here- 
after, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by 
human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, or conquest. I therefore beg 
leave to move that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven, 
and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning 
before we proceed to business ; and that one or more of the clergy of this 
city be requested to officiate in that service. 
The following apothegms are culled from Poor Richard's Almanac : 

APOTHEGMS. 

God helps them that help themselves. 

Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears; while the used key is always bright. 
Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. 
The sleeping fox catches no poultry. 
There will be sleeping enough in the grave. 

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality. 
Lost time is never found again ; and what we call time enough always proves little enough. 
Sloth makes all things diflBcult, but industry all easy. 

He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night. 
Laziness travels so slowly that Poverty soon overtakes him. 
Drive thy business, let not that drive thee. 

Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. 
Industry need not wish ; and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. 
He that hath a trade hath an estate ; and he that hath a calling hath an oflBce of profit and 
honour. 
Industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them. 
Diligence is the mother of good luck. 
God gives all things to industry. 

Plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you will have corn to sell and to keep. 
One to-day is worth two to-morrows. 

Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day. 
The cat in gloves catches no mice. 
iConstant dropping wears away stones. 
By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable. 
Little strokes fell great oaks. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 61 

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure ; and, since thou art not sure of a 
minute, tlirow not away au hour. 

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. 

Three removes are as bad as a fire. 

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. 

If you would have your business done, go ; if not, send. 
He that by the plough would thrive, 
Himself must either hold or drive. 

The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands. 

Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge. 

Not to oversee workmen, is to leave them your purse open. 

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself. 

A fat kitchen makes a lean will. 

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. 

What maintains one vice would bring up two children. 

A small leak will sink a great ship. 

Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them. 

Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire. 

Always taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the bottom. 

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for he that goes a 
borrowing goes a sorrowing. 

When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy two more, that your appearance may 
be all of a piece. 

It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. 

" Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to the advantage of man- 
kind, compassing in his mind the heavens and the earth, was able to restrain alike thunder- 
bolts and tyrants." — Miraheau. 

"A singular felicity of induction guided all his research, and by very small means he 
established very grand truths. The style and manner of his piiblication on electricity are 
almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains. He has endeavored to remove 
all mystery and obscurity from the subject. He has written equally for the uninitiated and 
for the philosopher; and he has rendered his details amusing and perspicuous ; elegant as 
well as simple. Science appears in his language in a dress wonderfully decorous, best adapted 
to display her native loveliness. He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity by which 
philosophy is kept aloof from common applications ; and he has sought rather to make her 
a useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely 
as an object of admiration in temples and palaces." — Sir Humphrey Davy. 

"This self-taught American is the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers. He never 
loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations ; and when his philosophy does not 
consist entirely in its fair and vigorous application, it is always regulated and controlled by 
it in its application and results. No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a juster under- 
standing, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, enthusiasm, or authority. 
The distinguished feature of his understanding was great soundness and sagacity, combined 
with extraordinary quickness of penetration. He possessed also a strong and lively imagi- 
nation, which gave his speculations, as well as his conduct, a singularly original turn. The 
peculiar charm of his writings, and his great merit also in action, consisted in the clearness 
with which ho saw his object, and the bold and steady pursuit of it by the surest and the 
shortest road. He never suffered himself, in conduct, to be turned aside by the seductions 
of interest or vanity, or to be scared by hesitation and fear, or to be misled by the arts of 
his adversaries. Neither did he, in discussion, ever go out of his way in search of ornament, 
or stop short in dread of the consequences. He never could be caught, in short, acting ab- 
surdly, or writing nonsensically : at all times, and in everything he undertook, the vigor of 
an understanding at once original and practical was distinctly perceivable." — Lord Jeffrey. 




62 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



George Washington. 

George Washington, 1732-1799, was so immeasurably great in other 
respects, tliat it seems almost a profanation to speak of him as a writer. 
Yet his writings fill twelve octavo volumes, and are a valuable part of the 
political literature of the time. 

Most of Washington's writings are official papers. Some are diaries or journals, some are 
agricultural essays, yet all are distinctly Washingtonian. He had formed for himself a 
style, the unconscious outgrowth of his character, which is as distinctly marked as his hand- 
writing. Even in his Farewell Address, in which he invited the co-operation of Madison, 
Hamilton, and Jay, the document, in its final form, gives unmistakable evidence of the 
moulding hand of its original author. "It is unlike any composition of Madison or Ham- 
ilton, in a certain considerate moral tone which distinguished all Washington's writings. 
It is stamped by the position, the character, the very turns of phrase of the great man who 
gave it to his country." 

" The handwriting of Washington, large, liberal, and flowing, might be accepted as ... . 
a capital index of the style" of the writer, "and may help us to what we would say of its 
characteristics. It is open, manly, and uniform, with nothing minced, affected, or con- 
tracted. It has neither the precise nor the slovenly style which scholars variously fall into ; 
but a certain grandeur of the countenance of the man seems to look through it. Second to 
its main quality of truthfulness, saying no more than the writer was ready to abide by, is 
its amenity and considerate courtesy. Washington had, at different times, many unpleasant 
truths to tell ; but he could always convey them in the language of a gentleman. He wrote 
like a man of large and clear views. His position, which was on an eminence, obliterated 
minor niceties and shades which might have given a charm to his writings in other walks 
of life. This should always be remembered, that Washington lived in the eye of the pub- 
lic, and thought, spoke, and wrote under the responsibility of empire. Let his writings be 
compared with those of other rulers and commanders, and he will be found to hold his rank 
nobly, as well intellectually as politically. There will be found, too, a variety in his treat- 
ment of different topics and occasions. He can compliment a friend in playful happy terms 
on his marriage, as well as thunder his demands for a proper attention to the interests of the 
country at the doors of Congress. Never vulgar, he frequently uses colloquial phrases with 
effect, and, unsuspected of being a poet, is fond of figurative expressions. In fine, a critical 
examination of the writings of Washington will show that the man here, as in other lights, 
will suffer nothing by minute inspection." — Duyckinck. 



James Otis. 

James Otis, 1725-1783, the Patrick Henry of New England, was one of 
the earliest, boldest, and most eloquent advocates of the rights of the Colo- 
nies, in the dispute with the mother country. 

Otis was a native of West Barnstable, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard, of the 
class of 1743. He was a fine classical scholar, and, among other things, published a work 
on Latin Prosody, and a dissertation on The Power of Harmony in Prosaic Composition. His 
chief publications, however, were of a political character, namely, A Vindication of the Con- 
duct of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay ; The Rights of the British 
Colonies Asserted and Proved ; Considerations on behalf of the Colonists ; A Vindication of 
the British Colonies. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 63 

As a speaker, Otis was fiery and vehement, and often carried his hearers with him to an 
almost uncontrollable pitch of enthusiasm. His first great speech was in 1761, when he 
argued against an application for "writs of assistance." Of this speech, John Adams says : 
" Otis was a flame of fire ; with a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a 
rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic 
glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried 
away all before him. American independence ivas then and there bom. Every man of an im- 
mense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take up arms against 
writs of assistance." 

In 1769, ill an altercation in a coffee-house, Otis received a severe blow on the head, which 
led to insanity, and incapacitated him from taking any further part in public affairs. He 
passed the remainder of his life in retirement, at Barnstable and Andover. At the latter 
place, in 1783, while leaning on his cane, in the door of the house, he was struck by light- 
ning, and his soul instantly released from its shattered tenement. "Extraordinary in death, 
as in life, he has left a character that will never die, while the memory of the American 
Revolution remains ; whose foundations he laid with an energy and with those masterly 
abilities which no other man possessed." — John Adams. 



The Elder Adams. 

John Adams, 1735-1826, one of the originators and leaders of the 
American Bevolution, and the second President of the United States, was 
a political writer of great ability, and by his writings contributed largely to 
the success of the American cause. 

Adams embarked in the controversy between the Colonies and Great Britain as early as 
1765, and continued to discuss the subjects at issue until the close of the war. His writings 
have been collected and edited by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, in 10 vols., 8vo. His 
Letters to his Wife have also been published in 2 vols. The following are some of his larger 
works: A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law ; Novauglus, A History of the Dispute 
with America, from its origin in 1754 to the Present Time (1774); Defence of the Constitu- 
tions of Government of the United States of America (published in England, in 1787) ; Dis- 
courses on Davila, a Series of Papers on Political History. 

Adams weis a native of Braintree, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1755. 
He was a member of the first Continental Congress, in Philadelphia, in 1774 ; he first nomi- 
nated George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the American forces ; he was one of 
the committee of five to draft the Declaration of Independence ; he went in 1777 as commis- 
sioner to France, and again in 1779, to negotiate a peace ; he was one of those who made the 
treaty of peace in 1783; and in 1785, he became the first American minister to England. 
He was Vice-President during Washington's two terms, and in 1797 succeeded to the Presi- 
dency. 

Mrs. Abigal Adams, 1744-1818, the wife of the preceding, was a woman of fine literary 
culture. A collection of her Letters has been published by her grandson, Charles Francis 
Adams. 

Thomas Jefferson. 

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, third President of the United States, in 
addition to all his other merits^ won for himself an imperishable name, as 
the author of the Declaration of Independence. 



64 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, and studied at William and 
Mary. 

He was admitted to the bar in 1T67 ; and soon afterward entered upon political life, not to 
leave it until his final retirement in 1809, Jefferson was successively a member of the State 
Legislature, of the Continental Congress, Governor of the State, Secretary of State under 
Washington, Minister to France, Yice-President and President of the United States. 

As a political leader, Jefferson's merits and demerits are too well known to need more 
than a brief recapitulation. His name is the most conspicuous, next to those of Washington 
and Franklin, in American history ; his services are great and manifold, although less pro- 
found perhaps than those of Hamilton. 

It was Jefferson who first reduced party strife to a system, and originated, if he did not 
fully develop, the plan of ejecting oflBce-holders in favor of the victorious political party — a 
system that has done more to degrade American politics than all other causes combined. 
Jefferson was also the chief organizer of what was then the Republican (now the Demo- 
cratic) party, in opposition to the Federalists under the lead of Hamilton. The former sought 
to weaken, the latter to strengthen the power of the general government. 

On the other hand, Jefferson has won for himself an imperishable name through his au- 
thorship of the Declaration of Independence. It is now generally conceded that the Decla- 
ration, aside from a few slight alterations, was the exclusive work of Jefferson. What the 
character of the Declaration is, and what its effects upon the political history of the world 
have been and still are, is known to all. Jefferson is also the author of the Yirginia Statute 
for Religious Freedom, and the father of the University of Tirginia. In 1784, while residing 
in Paris, he published his celebrated Notes on the State of Virginia, a work which attracted 
great attention at the time, and which still has its value as an important collection of facts 
and statistics. Jefferson is also the author of a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which is 
regarded as authority in Washington and elsewhere. Jefferson's Correspondence was pub- 
lished in 1829, and, in 1854 appeared, in 9 vols., 8vo, a complete edition of his letters, auto- 
biography, messages, etc., etc., published from the original manuscripts then in the Depart- 
ment of State at Washington. These papers form a most valuable contribution to the 
history of the United States, covering, as they do, the most critical military and political 
period prior to 1860. 

Jefferson made no pretensions to oratory, and seldom engaged in debate. But as a skilful 
writer, he had no superior among his contemporaries and associates. Some of his messages 
are models of political eloquence. The first of the following extracts reminds us of Frank- 
lin ; the second will compare favorably with the character-paintings of Brougham. 

A DECALOGUE. 

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 

2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. 

3. Never spend your money before you have it. 

4. Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap : it will be dear to you. 

5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. 

6. We never repent of having eaten too little. 

7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. 

8. How much pain have cost us the evils that have never happened. 

9. Take things always by the smooth handle. 

10. When angry, count ten before you speak ; if very angry, a hundred, 

CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 

I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly ; and were I called on to 
delineate his character, it should be in terms like these : — 
His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order ; his penetration 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 65 

strong, though not so acute as that of Newton, Bacon, or Locke ; and as far as he saw, no 
judgment was ever sounder. lie was slow in operation, being little aided by invention 
or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his ofBcers, of the 
advantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected what- 
ever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if 
deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sud- 
den circumstances, he was slow in a re-adjustment. The consequence was, that he often 
failed in the field, but rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was 
incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the 
strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, 
every consideration was maturely weighed; refraining, if he saw a doubt; but, when once 
decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was the 
most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known ; no motives of interest or con- 
sanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every 
sense of the word, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and 
high-toned ; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over 
it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his ex- 
penses he was honorable, but«xact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; 
but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. 
His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and 
gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine ; his stature ex- 
actly what one would wish ; his deportment easy, erect, and noble ; the best horseman of 
his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the 
circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in con- 
versation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness 
of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was un- 
ready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct 
style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely 
reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His 
time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English 
history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agri- 
cnltural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his 
character w£is, in its mass, perfect; in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may 
truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man 
great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited 
from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of 
leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment 
of its independence ; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in 
its forms and principles, until it had settled down to a quiet and orderly train ; and of scru- 
pulously obeying the laws tlirough the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the 
history of the world furnishes no other example. 



James Madison. 

James Madison, 1751-1836, fourtli President of the United States, con- 
tributed to the political literature of the country two works of great impor- 
tance, namely, a considerable portion of The Federalist, and A Keport of 
the Debates of the Convention which framed the Constitution. 

Madison was a native of King George County, Virginia, and a graduate of Princeton, of 
the class of 1771. He was a diligent student, enjoying in a higli degree the confidence of 
President Witherspoon, and remained in Princeton some time after graduating, engaged la 

6* E 



66 AMERICA]!^ LITERATURE. 

a course of reading under the President's direction. His health, always delicate, was im- 
paired by excessive study. Though a life-long invalid, yet by care in husbanding his 
resources he accomplished an unusually large amount of work, and he survived to the age 
of eighty-five. 

Madison was, in 1776, a member of the Convention which framed the first Constitution of 
Virginia ; in 1780, a member of the Continental Congress, many of whose most important 
State papers were written by him; in 1787, a member of the Convention that framed the 
Constitution of the United States. He not only contributed largely to the formation of that 
document, but did the inestimable service of taking notes daily of the debates of the Con- 
vention, and writing them out carefully at night. Such a labor, performed by one in his 
habitually feeble health, shows both his high sense of duty and his clear and prophetic 
apprehension of the gravity of the labors in which they were engaged. 

Madison's character as a statesman is well known. In breadth of view and in depth of 
character he was surpassed by Jefferson and Hamilton ; on the other hand, he was distin- 
guished for his calm good sense and his ready tact in carrying out political measures. Judge 
Story speaks of him in the following language : " I entirely concur with you in your esti- 
mate of Mr. Madison, — his private virtues, his extraordinary talents, bis comprehensive and 
statesmanlike views. To him and Hamilton, I think, we are mainly indebted for the Con- 
stitution of the United States ; and in wisdom I have long been accustomed to place him 
before Jefferson." 

As a writer, Madison is chiefly known by his contributions to The Federalist — twenty- 
nine in number — and his Reports of the Debates of the Convention which framed the Con- 
stitution of the United States. The manuscript of these reports was purchased by Congress 
and published in 1840, in 3 vols. The great bulk of his manuscripts, however, still remains 
unpublished, and would probably fill twelve or thirteen volumes. It is to be regretted that 
this collection is inaccessible to the public. His political writings are second only to those 
of Hamilton in ability and influence. His style has not the intense nervous energy of Jef- 
ferson's, but his argumentation is considered sounder. 



James Monroe. 

James Monboe, 1758-1831, fifth President of the United States, though 
not so distinguished in authorship as some of the early Presidents, was yet 
a scholarly man, and made some valuable contributions to the political lit- 
erature of the period. 

Monroe was a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia, and a graduate of William and 
Mary. Though only eighteen at the outbreak of the Revolution, he entered at once and with 
characteristic earnestness into the service of the country as a soldier. After the war was 
over, he engaged actively in public affairs, state and national, and rose by degrees through 
various offices until in 1817 he reached the Presidency. Though much of his political career 
belongs to the present century, an important part of it is connected with the organization 
and settlement of the government after the war of the Revolution. For this reason, he is 
usually classed with the men of that generation. 

Monroe wrote some works worthy of note : A View of the Conduct of the Executive in 
the Foreign Affairs of the United States, published by him in London in 1798, in vindication 
of his public conduct while he was resident minister in Paris; A Tour of Observation 
through the North-Eastern and North-Western States in 1817. 

The inscription on the tomb of Monroe, in the Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond, is sin- 
gularly beautiful, and deserves to be transcribed as a specimen of good taste in such compo- 
sitions. The inscription is these simple words: "James Monroe; born in Westmoreland 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 67 

County, 28th April, 1768 ; died in the city of New York, 4th July, 1831. By order of the 
General Assembly, his remains were removed to this cemetery, 5th July, 1858, as an evidence 
of the affection of Virginia for her good and honored son." I wish I knew the author of this 
remarkable inscription. Nothing in Greek or Roman letters is more beautiful. 

Alexander Hamilton. 

Alexander Hamilton, 1757-1804, was the ablest of all the political 
writers of the Revolution. The Federalist, which was mainly his work, is 
not only an important national treasure, but an enduring monument of 
intellectual and literary greatness. 

Hamilton was a native of St. Kitts, in the West Indies, being of Scotch blood on the 
father's side, and of Huguenot blood by his mother. Though his mother died when he was 
but a child, he cherished her memory " with inexpressible fondness." At twelve years of 
age he was entered as a clerk in the counting-house of Nicholas Cruger, a West India mer- 
chant having dealings with New York. Cruger took a special interest in his young clerk, 
and the kindness thus shown made a lasting impression on the mind of the susceptible boy. 
When, on the death of Cruger, his affairs were in litigation, Hamilton, then in the height of 
his practice as a lawyer, put forth his professional abilities to protect the interests of the 
family, but steadily refused all compensation for his services ; and when, after the death of 
Hamilton, a compensation was offered to his widow, a paper was found, written by Hamilton, 
in which he enjoined upon his family " never to receive money from any of the name of 
Cruger." 

Hamilton's father had not been successful in business, but the indications of superior 
talent shown by the boy induced his friends to make special exertions for his education, and 
in 1772 he was sent to the United States for this purpose. He studied for a time at Eliza- 
bethtown. New Jersey, with Francis Barber, a Princeton man, and while there enjoyed the 
intimacy of Governor Livingston. He presented himself for admission to the College at 
Princeton, with a view of passing from class to class as rapidly as his attainments would 
permit. But Dr. Witherspoon not acceding to this plan, Hamilton went to King's (now Col- 
umbia) College, New York. He had already caught the popular enthusiasm in regard to 
liberty, and he began while in College taking an active part, both by the pen and with the 
tongue, in the political discussions of the day. He published when only seventeen a series 
of essays on the Rights of the Colonies. His first attempt to address a popular assembly 
is thus described by his biographer : 

"It has been related to have been his habit to walk several hours each day under the shade 
of some large trees which stood in Batteau, now Dey street, talking to himself in an under 
tone of voice, apparently engaged in deep thought, a practice he continued through life. 
This circumstance attracted the attention of his neighbors, to whom he was known as 
the "young West Indian," and led them to engage in conversation with him. One of them 
remarking the vigor and maturity of his thoughts, urged him to address this meeting, to 
which all the patriots were looking with the greatest interest. From this seeming intru- 
sion he at first recoiled ; but after listening attentively to the successive speakers, and find- 
ing several points untouched, he presented himself to the assembled multitude. The nov- 
elty of the attempt, his youthful countenance, his slender and diminutive form, awakened 
curiosity and arrested attention. Overawed by the scene before him, he at first hesitated 
and faltered ; but as he proceeded almost unconsciously to utter his accustomed reflections, 
his mind warmed with the theme, his energies were recovered; and after a discussion clear, 
cogent, and novel, of the great principles involved in the controversy, he depicted in glow- 
ing colors the long-continued and long-endured oppressions of the mother country; ho in- 
sisted on the duty of resistance, pointed to the means and certainty of success, and described 



68 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the waves of rebellion sparkling with fire, and washing back on the shores of England the 
wrecks of her power, her wealth, and her glory. The breathless silence ceased as he closed ; 
and the whispered murmur, ' It is a collegian ! it is a collegian ! ' was lost in loud expres- 
sions of wonder and applause at the extraordinary eloquence of the young stranger." 

Hamilton's remarkable powers and.services as a writer have rather thrown into the shade 
his abilities as a soldier. It should not be forgotten, however, that he did conspicuous ser- 
vice in the field. By the advice of Washington, when war with France was threatened, 
Hamilton was placed second in command, and he became commander-in-chief on the death 
of "Washington. 

No one of the great men of those times stands forth more conspicuous than Hamilton, and 
no one certainly has had a greater influence than he in shaping the destiny of his country. 
This influence is due, first to his labors as a member of the Constitutional Convention and 
his essays in The Federalist, and next to his success in organizing the national credit and 
treasury at a time when the finances of the country seemed in a hopeless condition. 

Hamilton's fame as a writer and thinker rests chiefly upon his contributions to The Fed- 
eralist. Out of the eighty-five essays contained therein, fifty-one are by him, twenty-nine by 
James Madison, five by John Jay. These essays appeared in the interval between the pub- 
lication and the adoption of the Constitution, and were designed to explain its merits to the 
people at large. Hamilton's contributions are easily distinguished from the others " by 
their superior comprehensiveness, practicalness, originality, and condensed and polished 
diction." The leading feature in Hamilton's character was genius, but genius turned un- 
ceasingly to useful ends. The precocity of his development, his unerring insight, the ease 
and the energy with which he labored, as well as his early and tragic death, have all com- 
bined to make his name second to that of Washington alone in the annals of his country. 
To this day the arrangement of the Treasury Office remains substantially as Hamilton left 
it, and The Federalist is still the best manual for the student of the Constitution. 

" Hamilton must be classed among the men who have best known the vital principles and 
fundamental conditions of a government, — not of a government such as this, [France,] but 
of a government worthy of its mission and its name. There is not in the Constitution of 
the United States an element of order, of force, or of duration, which he has not powerfully 
contributed to introduce into it and caused to predominate." — Guizot. 

" No constitution of government ever I'eceived a more masterly and successful vindication. 
I know not, indeed, of any work on the principles of free government that is to be com- 
pared, in instruction and intrinsic value, to this small and unpretending volume of the Fed- 
eralist; not even if we resort to Aristotle, Cicero, IMachiavel, Montesquieu, Milton, Locke, 
or Burke. It is equally admirable in the depth of its wisdom, the comprehensiveness of its 
views, the sagacity of its reflections, and the fearlessness, patriotism, candor, simplicity, 
and elegance, with which its truths are uttered and recommended. Mr. Justice Story acted 
wisely in making The Federalist the basis of his Commentary."— CfeawceWor Kent. 

" He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed 
forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The 
fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden or more perfect 
than the financial system of the United States as it burst forth from the conception of Alex- 
ander Hamilton." — Daniel Webster. 

" He was capable of intense and effectual application, as it abundantly proved by his pub- 
lic labours. But he had a rapidity and clearness of conception in which he may not have 
been equalled. One who knew his habits of study said of him, that when he had a serious 
object to accomplish, his practice was to reflect on it previously ; and, when he had gone 
through this labour, he retired to sleep, without regard to the hour of night, and, having 
slept six or seven hours, he rose, and, having taken strong coffee, seated himself at his table, 
whore ho would remain six, seven, or eight hour8>and the product of his rapid pen required 
little correction for the press." — William Sullivan, 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 69 



John Jay. 

John Jay, 1745-1829, another conspicuous political writer of the Revo- 
lutionary period, was associated with Hamilton and Madison in the produc- 
tion of The Federalist. 

Jay wrote only five of the papers in The Federalist, being prevented from writing others 
by an injury received in the interim. He is, however, universally accepted as one of the 
great men who contributed powerfully by his pen to the achievement of national indepen- 
dence and to the organization and settlement of the new government. 

Jay was a native of New York city, of Huguenot descent, and a graduate of Columbia 
College, After filling many important positions, he was appointed by Washington, in 1789, 
Chief Justice of the United States. Besides his contributions to The Federalist, he was the 
author of a number of State papers, the most celebrated of which is the Address to the 
People of Great Britain, in 1774. This gained for him the reputation of being one of the 
most eloquent writers of the times. 



Dr. Witherspoon. 

JoHK Witherspoon, D. D., LL. J)., 1722-1794, sixth in the line of illus- 
trious Presidents of the College of New Jersey, contributed largely to the 
literature of the period, and was in various ways one of the leaders of pub- 
lic opinion, both political and religious. 

Witherspoon's works have been published in numerous editions, and in a variety of forms, 
chiefly in 4 vols. 8vo, and 9 vols. 12mo. They embrace, among others, the following : Con- 
siderations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parlia- 
ment ; An Essay on Money ; Thoughts on American Liberty ; The Druid, a collection of 
essays on literary and social topics ; Lectures on Moral Philosophy ; Lectures on Eloquence; 
Ecclesiastical Characteristics ; The History of a Corporation of Servants ; A Serious Enquiry 
into the Nature and Effects of the Stage ; Practical Discourses on the Leading Truths of the 
Gospel, etc. 

Witherspoon was born at Yester, Scotland, a lineal descendant from John Knox, and waa 
educated at the University of Edinburgh. He was a minister at Paisley, at the time of hia 
election to the Presidency of the College. He was President from 1768 to his death, 1794, 
twenty-six years. He took an active part in Provincial affairs ; and represented the 
Province of New Jersey in the Continental Congress, from 1776 to 1782. He was one of the 
Signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

Witherspoon was a ready debater, and carried great weight, both in ecclesiastical and 
political assemblies. He was remarkable for his wit, and often used it to the discomfiture of 
his opponents. He was through life active in the use of his pen, and his writings, though 
less known now than formerly, exerted an important influence upon the men of his 
generation. 

One of the works which he published before leaving Scotland, Ecclesiastical Character- 
istics, created a decided breeze. It was written to expose the character of what was known 
as the Moderate party in the Church of Scotland, including such men as Blair, Robertson, 
Campbell, and Gerard, and by its racy wit as well as by its solid argument gained for the 
author great applause. Under the form of a defence of the worldly spirit and practices of 
the Moderates, he assailed them with a merciless irony which penetrated between the very 
joints of the harness. It was a species of attack to which there could be no reply, and from 
which there was no escape. The following sentence is a specimen : 



70 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

" Sometimes, indeed, it may happen, by a concurrence of circumstances, that one of us 
may, at bedtime, be unequally yoked with an orthodox brother, who may propose a little 
unseasonable devotion between ourselves, before we lie down to sleep: but there are twenty 
ways of throwing cold water upon such a motion ; or, if it should be insisted upon, I 
could recommend a moderate way of complying with it, from the example of one of our 
friends, who, on a like occasion, yielded so far, that he stood up at the back of a chair, and 
said, ' Lord, we thank thee for Mr. Bayle's Dictionary. Amen.' This was so far from 
spoiling good company, that it contributed wonderfully to promote social mirth, and sweet- 
ened the young men in a most agreeable manner for their rest." 

The Characteristics passed through five editions. 

The History of a Corporation of Servants was a disguised narrative of the church history 
of Great Britain. The essay on the Stage originated in the publication of Home's Douglas. 
Both these were written before he left Scotland. 

When the invitation from America came, a rich bachelor friend offered to make Wither- 
spoon heir to a large property if he would remain in Scotland. But he had already imbibed 
those sentiments on religious and civil affairs which made him feel that America was his 
true home ; and from the day of his entrance into the New World until his death, he em- 
barked with all his wealth of wit and wisdom and eloquence, in the cause of his adopted 
country. No one thought, or " thinks, of Witherspoon as a Briton, but as an American of 
the Americans : as the friend of Stockton, the counsellor of Morris, the correspondent of 
Washington, the rival of Franklin in his sagacity, and of Reed in his resolution ; one of the 
boldest in that Declaration of Independence, and one of the most revered in the debates of 
Congress." — Dr. James Alexander. 

During the latter part of his life, Witherspoon lived in a small country-seat, called Tuscu- 
lum, a little out of Princeton, on the slope of Rocky Hill. For the last two years of his life 
he was blind. He retained the office of President until his death, but for several years his 
duties in that connection were merely nominal, his son-in-law and successor, Dr. Smithy 
being the acting President. 

James Rivington. 
James Eivington, 1725-1802, publisher of the New York Eoyal 
Gazette, though not himself a literary man, occupies a conspicuous but 
rather unenviable position in our Revolutionary'literature. 

New York city being, during most of the time, in the possession of the British, Riving- 
ton's Gazette was the channel through which British officers and partisans carried on the 
war of squibs against the " rebels." The paper, though noted for lying, was conducted with 
ability, and the Americans, stung to the quick by Rivington's wasps, replied with equal 
sarcasm. The literature thus engendered is one of the notable features of the times. Some 
of the best effusions of Witherspoon, Freneau, and Hopkinson, were caused in this way. 

Rivington was originally a bookseller iu London, where he amassed a fortune by trade, 
but lost it by gambling. Failing in business, he came to America in 1760, and settled first 
in Philadelphia and afterwards in New York. In connection with his paper, he kept a book- 
store. He had, before the war, made himself so obnoxious to the Americans, that in 1775 a 
company of the " Sons of Liberty " broke up his press and converted the type into bullets, 
and he was at one time held under duress by order of the Continental Congress. 

Rivington made himself so obnoxious, both to the Government and the people, that when 
the British withdrew from New York, it was thought as a matter of course that he would 
escape. Instead of that, he remained in the city and continued his business unmolested. 
The circumstance excited some surprise, but the fact leaked out gradually that during the 
latter days of the war, while Rivington was filling his paper with his most virulent attacks 
upon the American cause, he was secretly acting as a spy for Washington. 



THE EEVOLUTIONAKY PERIOD. 71 

Philip Freneau. 

Philip Freneau, 1752-1832, was the ablest and most versatile of the 
political humorists of the Revolutionary period. His contributions, both 
prose and verse, to the newspapers, during and after the Revolution, were 
very numerous, and were held in high repute. They included social and 
literary topics, as well as those which were political ; and many of them 
were reprinted, from time to time, in book form. 

Freneau was of French descent, a native of New York, and a graduate of Princeton, of the 
class of 1771. Being a resident of New York in the years 1774-'75, he wrote poetical satires 
of the Tory leaders, which were an important aid to the popular cause. 

"While at Princeton, he was the room-mate and classmate of James Madison, who con- 
tinued to be his warm friend. He enjoyed also the friendship of Adams, Franklin, Jeffer- 
son, and Monroe. In reward for his services as a political writer during the war of Inde- 
pendence, he received an appciintmeut from Jefferson as translator in the Department of 
State. 

In the beginning of the war, Freneau was captured by the British, and suffered in the 
horrors of one of the infamous prison-ships in New York harbor. After the war he com- 
manded for a time a vessel sailing out of Charleston, and he is often spoken of as Captain 
Freneau. 

As a political writer, after the war, Freneau took sides with Jefferson and the Republican 
party, and against Hamilton and the Federals. He edited for a time the Daily Advertiser, 
New York ; then the National Gazette, Philadelphia, 1791-1793. Afterwards, he retired to 
Mount Pleasant, near Middletown Point, New Jersey, where, in 1795, he started a small 
paper of his own, the Jersey Chronicle, which continued about a year. His next venture 
was in New York, where, in 1797, he began the Time-Piece and Literary Companion. 

Among Fretieau's prose writings may be mentioned The Philosopher of the Forest, Essays 
by Robert Slender, etc. Poetry, however, was the chief resource of his pen, and the pieces 
which he wrote would, if collected, fill several large volumes. Much of this was designed 
for mere temporary effect, and passed away with the occasion which called it forth. Others 
of his efforts had the genuine poetic afflatus, and deserve a permanent place in letters. 

SeveraJ collections have been made at different times: The Poems of Philip Freneau, written 
chiefly during the late war, 12mo, Philadelphia, 1786 ; The Miscellaneous Works of Philip Fre- 
neau, containing his Essays and Additional Poems, 12mo, 429 pp., Philadelphia, 1788 ; Poems 
written between 1768 and 1794, by Philip Freneau, of New Jereey, 8vo, 456 pp., Middletown 
Point, N. J., 1795. This was a reprint of the two previous volumes, with additions, and 
was issued from his own press. A similar reprint, with still further additions, appeared in 
Philadelphia in 1809, in 2 vols. Another collection appeared in New York, in 1815, in 2 vols., 
12mo, being A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, and on a Variety of Other Subjects, 
chiefly Moral and Political, written between 1797 and 1815. 

Freneau lived to an advanced age, his last years being spent in retirement, at Mount 
Pleasant, Monmouth County, New Jersey. He perished in a snow storm, near Freehold, in 
that county, in 1832, in the eightieth year of his life. 

THE NEW ENGLAND SABBATH-DAY CHASE. 

On a fine Sunday morning I mounted my steed. 
And southward from Hartford had meant to proceed; 
My baggage was stow'd in a cart very snug, 
Which Ranger, tiie gelding, was fated to lug; 



72 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

With his haruess and buckles, he loomM very grand. 

And was drove by young Darby, a lad of the land — 

On land or on water, most handy was he ; 

A jockey on shore, and a sailor at sea; 

He knew all the roads, he was so very keen, 

And the Bible by heart, at the age of fifteen. 

As thus I jogg'd on, to my saddle confined. 

With Ranger and Darby a distance behind ; 

At last in full view of a steeple we came, 

With a cock on the spire, (I suppose he was game; 

A dove in the pulpit may suit your grave people. 

But always remember — a cock in the steeple.) 

Cries Darby — "Dear master, I beg you to stay; 

Believe me, there's danger in driving this way; 

Our deacons on Sundays have power to arrest 

And lead us to church — if your honour thinks best: 

Though still I must do them the justice to tell, 

They would choose you should pay them a fine — full as well." 

"The fine (said I), Darby, how much may it be — 

A shilling or sixpence ? Why, now let me see, 

Three shillings are all the small pence that remain, , 

And to change a half joe would be rather profane. 

Is it more than three shillings, the fine that you speak on? 

What say you, good^Darby, will that serve the deacon?" 

" Three shillings ! " (cried Darby) " why, master, you 're jesting ! — 

Let us luff while we can, and make sure of our westing — 

Forty shillings, excuse me, is too much to pay. 

It would take my month's wages — that's all I've to say. 

By taking this road that inclines to the right. 

The squire and the sexton may bid us good night: 

If once to old Ranger I give up the rein, 

The parson himself may pursue us in vain." 

" Not I, my good Darby (I answer'd the lad), 

Leave the church on the left ! they would think we were mad 

I would sooner rely on the heels of my steed, 

And pass by them all, like a Jehu indeed. 

As long as I'm able to lead in the race. 

Old Ranger, the gelding, will go a good pace ; 

As the deacon pursues, he will fly like a swallow, 

And you in the cart must undoubtedly follow." 

Then approaching the church, as we pass'd by the door, ' 
The sexton peep'd out, with a saint or two more. 
A deacon came forward and wav'd us his hat, 
A signal to drop him some money — mind that! 
"Now, Darby, (I whispered) be ready to skip, 
Ease off the curb bridle — give Ranger the whip:' 
While you have the rear, and myself lead the way, 
No doctor or deacon shall catch ub to-day." 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 73 

By this time the deacon had mounted his pony, 
And chased for the sake of our so-ils and — our money: 
The saint, as he followed, cried — -'Stop them, halloo 1" 
As swift aa he followed, as swiftly we flew. 

**Ah, master! (said Darby) I ■" ?ry much fear 

We must drop him some mo'.i^>y to check his career; 

He is gaining upon us, and \Vaves with his hat — 

There 's nothing, dear master, will stop him but that. 

Since fortune all hope of escaping denies. 

Better give them a little than lose the whole prize." 

But scarce had he spoke, wheu we came to a place. 

Whose muddy condition concluded the chase. 

Down settled the cart, and old Ranger stuck fast. 

Aha! (said tlie saint,) ha>'^. I catcKd ye at last/ 

The following is in a very diflferent vein : 

MAY TO APRIL. 
I. 

Without your showers 

I breed no flowers, 
Each field a barren waste appears; 

If you don't weep. 

My blossoms sleep. 
They take such pleasure in your tears. 

II. 

As your decay 

Made room for May, 
So I must part with all that's mine; 

My balmy breeze. 

My blooming trees, 
To torrid suns their sweets resign. 

HL 

For April dead 

My shade I spread. 
To her I owe my dress so gay; 

Of daughters three 

It falls on me 
To close our triumphs on one day. 

IV. 

Thus to repose 

All nature goes; 
Month after month must find its doom; 

Time on the veing. 

May ends the Spring, 
And Summer frolics o'er her tomb. 

In his Essays by Robert Slender is one giving Directions for Courtship, another contain- 
ing Advice to Authors, etc. These various pieces are full of quiet satire, sharp as Wither- 
spoon and practical as Franklin. Take the following : 

7 



74 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"Nerer make a present of yonr works to great men. If they do not think them worth 
purchasing, they will not think them worth reading." 



Hugh Henry Braekenridge. 

Hugh Hexry Beackex ridge, 1748-1816, was one of the abl'^st humor- 
ists of the Kevolutionary period. His chief work, Modern Chivalry, is 
worthy of a permanent place in literature. Its satire is keen and trench- 
ant, and its sketches of life and manners in Western Pennsylvania give an 
admirable picture of society in that region at the close of the last 
century. 

Braekenridge was boru in Scotland. He came at the age of five to America, and settled 
with the rest of the family in York County, Pennsylvania, near the border of Maryland. 
His opportunities for learning were meagre. A clergjTnan of the neighborhood gave him 
some help in making his first acquaintance with Latin and Greek. All the rest he had to 
pick up as he could. Books were few, schools there were none. He thought nothing of a 
tramp of twenty or thirty miles to secure the loan of a book or a newspaper. By teaching a 
district school he gained the means of taking himself to Princeton, where he was kindly re- 
ceived by Dr. Witherspoon. "While in college he sustained himself in the upper classes by 
acting as tutor to the lower classes, and he graduated in 1771, in the same class with Madi- 
son and Freneau. Among the Commencement exercises, on the occasion, was a poem on the 
Bising Glory of America, the joint work of Braekenridge and Freneau. The poem was in 
the form of a dialogue, between Acasto and Eugenic, and was afterwards published. 

Braekenridge, after graduation, taught an academy for several years in Marj'land. TThile 
thus engaged, he wrote for his pupils a dramatic piece, called Bunker's Hill, in five acts. 
This was published in Philadelphia, in 1776, with a dedication to Kichard Stockton of New 
Jersey. Appended to this drama are two other patriotic poems, one An Ode on the Battle 
of Bunker's Hill, the other A Song on "Washington's Victorious Entrj' into Boston. 

In 1776, Braekenridge went to Philadelphia, and supported himself by editing the United 
State* Magazine. "At one time the magazine contained some severe strictures on the cele- 
brated General Lee, and censured him for Ids conduct to "Washington. Lee, in a rage, called 
at the oflice, in company with one or two of his aids, with the intention of assaulting the 
editor ; he knocked at the door, while Mr. Braekenridge, looking out of the upper story 
window, inquired what was wanting. 'Come down,' said Lee, 'and I '11 give you as good a 
horse-whipping as any rascal ever received.' ' Excuse me, general,' said the other, ' I would 
not go down for two such favors.' " 

Braekenridge studied for the ministry and was licensed to preach, but was never ordained. 
He acted as chaplain in the Revolutionary army, and preached political sermons in the camp. 
Six of these sermons, printed in pamphlet form, had a large circulation. Finding after a 
time that his inclinations and tastes were for a different kind of life, and not being entirely 
satisfied on some points of doctrine, he declined ordination, and engaged in the practice of 
the"law. He settled himself, in 1781, in Pittsburg, and took an active part in the politics 
of "Western Pennsylvania. In 1799, he wa-s appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania, and he filled the office until his death in 1S16. 

Braekenridge was mixed up to some extent with what was known as the "Whi.skey Insur- 
rection, in 1794, and he published, in the following year, an account of the affair, under the 
title of Incidents of the Insurrection in the "Western Parts of Pennsylvania. 

The full title of his chief work was Modem Chivalry, or the Adventures of Captain Far-. 
rago, and Teague O'Regan, his Servant. The materials of the story are taken from his own 
political experience. Captain Farrago was the author himself. Teague is a creation of his 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 75 

own, in which some elements of the Irish character are used as a means of hitting off soma 
of the follies of the day. The first part of Modern Chivalry was published at Pittsbtirg, in 
1796. The second part appeared after an interval of ten years. The whole with the author's 
last corrections was issued in Pittsburg, in 1S19, in 2 vols. A Philadelphia edition, with 
illustrations by Darley, appeared in 1S46. 

CAPTAIN FARRAGO'S REPLY TO A CHALLENGE. 

Sir : I hare two objections to this duel matter. The one is, lest I should hurt you ; and 
the other is, lest you should hurt me. I do not see any good it would do me to put a bullet 
thro' any part of your body. I could make no use of you when dead for any culinary pur- 
pose, as I would a rabbit or turkey. I am no cannibal to feed on the flesh of men. Why 
then shoot down a human creature, of which I could make no use? A buflfaloe would be 
better meat. For thougli your flesh may be delicate and tender, yet it wants that firmness 
and consistency which takes and retains salt. At any rate, it would not be fit for long sea- 
voyages. You might make a good barbacue, it is true, being of the nature of a raccoon or 
an opossum; but people are not in the habit of barbacuing anything human now. As to 
your hide, it is not worth taking off, being little better than that of a year old colt. 

It would seem to me a strange thing to shoot at a man that would stand still to be shot at, 
inasmuch as I have been heretofore used to shoot at things flying, or running, or jumping. 
Were you on a tree now, like a squirrel, endeavouring to hide yourself in the branches, or 
like a raccoon, that after much eyeing and spying, I observe at length in the crutch of a tall 
oak, with boughs and leaves intervening, so that I could just get a sight of his hinder parts, 
I should think it pleasurable enough to take a shot at you. But as it is, there is no skill 
or judgment requisite either to discover or take you down. 

As to myself, I do not like to stand in the way of anything harmful. I am under appre- 
hensions you might hit me. That being the case, I think it most advisable to stay at some 
distance. If you want to try your pistols, take some object, a tree or a barn-door, about my 
dimensions. If you hit that, send me word, and I shall acknowledge that if I had been in 
the same place you might also have hit me. J. F. 

Francis Hopkinson. 

FRAifCis Hopkinson, 1737-1791, was the author of many humorous 
pieces, both prose and verse, which did good service to the popular cause. 
Some of his productions, like The Battle of the Kegs, and his squibs on 
Eivington, set the whole country in a roar. 

Hopkinson was born in Philadelphia, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania. 
After graduating, he spent two years in England. On returning to America, he settled in 
Bordentown, New Jersey, and married there. He represented New Jersey in 1776 in the 
Continental Congress, and was one of the signers of the Declaration. He was made Judge 
of the Admiralty of Pennsylvania in 1779, and a Judge of the United States District Court 
in 1790. 

The best known of Hopkinson's poems are : The Battle of the Kegs, The Treaty, A Camp 
Ballad, The New Roof; of his satirical pieces, The Typographical Method of Conducting a 
Quarrel, Essay on Whitewashing, Modern Learning; of his political pieces. The Pretty Story, 
The Prophecy, The Political Catechism. Hopkinson's wit and audacity made him one of the 
chief agents in educating the minds of the American people for independence. 

" A poet, a wit, a patriot, a chemist, a mathematician, and a judge of the admiralty ; his 
character was composed of a happy union of qualities and endowments commonly supposed 
to be discordant ; and, with the humor of Swift and Rjxbelais, he was always found on the side 
of virtue and social order." — Thcntvxa J. Wharton. 



76 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



The following extract from the Political Catechism will give some idea of Hopkinson's 
style in serious prose : 

FROM THE POLITICAL CATECHISM. 

" Who has the chief command of the American army ? — His Excellency General Wash- 
ington. 

" What is his character ? — To him the title of Excellency is applied with peculiar propriety. 
He is the best and tlie greatest man the world ever knew. In private life he wins the hearts 
and wears the love of all who are so happy as to fall within the circle of his acquaintance. 
In his public character he commands universal respect and admiration. Conscious that the 
principles on which he acts are indeed founded in virtue and truth, he steadily pursues the 
arduous work with a mind neither depressed by disappointment and diflBculties, nor elated 
with temporary successes. He retreats like a General, and attacks like a Hero. Had he 
lived in the days of idolatry, he had been worshipped as a God." 

The humorous ballad of The Battle of the Kegs originated in the following incident. Cer- 
tain machines, in the form of kegs, charged with gunpowder, were sent down the river to 
annoy the British shipping then at Philadelphia. The danger of these machines being dis- 
covered, the British manned the wharves and shipping, and discharged their small arms and 
cannon at everything they saw floating in the river during the ebb tide. 



THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS. 



Gallants attend and hear a friend 

Trill forth harmonious ditty, 
Strange things I '11 tell which late befell 

In Philadelphia city. 

'T was early day, as poets say, 
Just when the sun was rising, 

A soldier stood on a log of wood, 
And saw a thing surprising. 

As in amaze he stood to gaze, 
The truth can't be denied, sir. 

He spied a score of kegs or more 
Come floating down the tide, sir. 

A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, 
This strange appearance viewing, 

First damn'd his eyes, in great surprise. 
Then said, "Some mischief's brewing. 

•' Those kegs, I 'm told, the rebels hold, 
Pack'd up like pickled herring ; 

And they 're come down t' attack the town, 
In this new way of ferrying." 

The soldiers flew, the sailors too, 
And scar'd almost to death, sir. 

Wore out their shoes to spread the news, 
And ran till out of breath, sir. 

Now up and down throughout the town 
Most frantic scenes were acted ; 

And some ran here, and others there, 
Like men almost distracted. 



Some fire cry'd, which some denied, 
But said the earth had quaked ; 

And girls and boys, with hideous noise, 
Ran thro' the streets half naked. 

Sir William he, snug as a flea. 
Lay all this time a snoring. 



Now in a fright he starts upright, 

Awak'd by such a clatter ; 
He rubs both eyes, and boldly cries, 

" For God's sake, what 's the matter? ' 

At his bed-side he then espy'd 
Sir Erskine at command, sir, 

Upon one foot he had one boot. 
And th' other in his hand, sir. 

" Arise, arise ! " Sir Erskine cries, 
" The rebels — more 's the pity, 

Without a boat are all afloat, 
And rang'd before the city. 

" The motley crew, in vessels new, 
With Satan for their guide, sir, 

Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs, 
Come driving down the tide, sir. 

" Therefore prepare for bloody war, 
These kegs must all be routed. 

Or surely we despised shall be, 
And British courage doubted." 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 



77 



The royal band now ready stand, 

All rang'd in dread array, sir, 
With stomach stout to see it out, 

And make a bloody day, sir. 

The cannons roar from shore to shore. 

The small arms make a rattle ; 
Since wars began I 'm sure no man 

E'er saw so strange a battle. 

The rebel dales, the rebel vales, 

With rebel trees surrounded ; 
The distant woods, the hills and floods. 

With rebels echoes sounded. 

The fish below swam to and fro, 

Attack'd from every quarter ; 
Why sure, thought they, the devil 's to pay 

'Mongst folks above the water. 



The kegs, 't is said, tho' strongly made 
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 

Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
Tho conq'ring British troops, sir. 

From morn to night those men of might 

Display'd amazing courage ; 
And when the sun was fairly down, 

Retir'd to sup their porrage. 

An hundred men, with each a pen 

Or more, upon my word, sir. 
It is most true, would be too few 

Their valor to record, sir. 

Such feats did they perform that day. 
Against those wicked kegs, sir. 

That years to come, if they get home. 
They '11 make their boasts and brags, sir. 



John Trumbull. 

John Trumbttll, LL. D., 1750-1831, the author of numerous works, is 
chiefly known by his poem of McFingal, a work in the style of Hudibras, 
and intended to hold the British up to ridicule. 

Trumbull was born in Woodbury, Ct., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1767. He 
studied law for a time with John Adams, in Boston, and afterwards returned to Connecticut 
to practise. In 1781 he settled in Hartford. He was a member of the Legislature in 1800, 
and a Judge of the Superior Court from 1801 to 1819. He went to Detroit in 1825, and died 
there. He published many humorous articles, prose and verse, and three extended works 
of humor. The Progress of Dulness, a satire on the prevailing mode of education ; An Elegy 
on the Times ; and McFingal, an Epic Poem. The work last named is his chief poem. It is 
Hudibrastic in metre and style, and is intended to lash the Tories. McFingal was published 
in 1775, and was immensely popular. More than thirty editions of it were published. John 
Adams predicted that it would " live as long as Hudibras." Its popularity, however, has 
proved to be temporary. "It owes its decadence, not to a deficiency in genuine wit and 
humor of the Hudibrastic school, but to the lack of picturesqueness in the story, and of all 
elements of permanent interest in its heroes." — Dr. Peabody, in the I^.A. Eeview. 



Joel Barlow. 

Joel Barlow, 1755-1812, gained a rather unenviable notoriety by his 
ambitious attempt at a great American epic. The Columbiad. 

Barlow was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1778. He 
engaged actively in the war of Independence, part of the time as a soldier and part of the 
time as chaplain. At the close of the war he engaged in the profession of the law, and 
edited for a time a weekly newspaper, The American Mercury, at Hartford. He was em- 
ployed, in 1785, by the General Association of Connecticut to revise and supplement Watts's 
version of the Psalms, adapting them for tho use of the churches. He was afterwards em- 
ployed by the general government in various foreign negotiations; and in 1811 was minister 
plenipotentiary to the French Court. 

Barlow was the author of several literary works, but his chief performance was Tho Co- 

7* 



78 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

lumbiad, an epic poem of great length. It is composed of a senes of Visions, in which 
Hesper, the genius of the western continent, reveals to Colnmbus in prison the future his- 
tory of the new world. The work was published in 1808, in a style of great elegance, and 
ushered into notice with due heralding ; but it failed to live. Its merits were so far short 
of its pretensions that it only provoked ridicule. " In sketching the history of America from 
the days of Manco Capac down to the present day, and a few thousand years lower, the 
author, of course, cannot spare time to make us acquainted with any one individual. The 
most important personages, therefore, appear but once upon the scene, and then fall away 
and are forgotten. Mr. Barlow's exhibition accordingly partakes more of the nature of a 
procession, than of a drama. River gods, sachems, majors of militia, all enter at one side of 
his stage, and go off at the other, never to return. Rocha and Oella take up as much room 
as Greene and Washington ; and the rivers Potowmak and Delaware, those fluent and ven- 
erable personages, both act and talk a great deal more than Jefferson and I'ranklin." — Jtf- 
frey, in Edinburgh Review. 

The most popular of Barlow's works was a poem, called Hasty Pudding, written while he 
was abroad, and containing a good deal of genuine humor. 

President Stiles. 

Ezra Stiles, D. D., LL. D., 1727-1795, President of Yale College, pub- 
lished among other things A History of Three of the Judges of King 
Charles I., — Whalley, GofFe, and Dixwell. 

President Stiles was a man of extraordinary intellectual activity, as well as of great purity 
of character, and his administration of Yale College was one of distinguished success. 
He was born at North Haven, and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1746. He became Presi- 
dent in 1777. Besides the work in regard to the three regicide Judges, he published numer- 
ous Discourses, both English and Latin, and he left unfinished an Ecclesiastical History of 
New England, and a great many other manuscripts. " Take him for all in all, this extraor- 
dinary man was undoubtedly one of the purest and best-gifted men of his age." — Chancellor 
Kent. 

President Dwight. 

Timothy Dwight, D.D., 1752-1817, President of Yale College, was 
almost equally distinguished as a theologian and a man of letters, while for 
skill and ability in the administration of the afiairs of the College, he is 
justly regarded as a model President. 

Dr. Dwight seems to be on the border line between the last century and the present. But 
as the larger part of his intellectual activity is connected with the affairs of the last century, 
he has been included in the present chapter. 

Dwight was a native of Northampton, Mass., and a grandson, on the mother's side, of the 
famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards. He entered Yale College at the age of thirteen, and gradu- 
ated with distinction in the class of 1769. lie was a chaplain in the army during the war of 
Independence, and after several years of pastoral service, became President of Yale College. 
He continued in that oflBce from 1795 till the time of his death ; and by his learning and his 
abilities as a preacher, a lecturer, and an administrator, acquired a reputation coextensive 
almost with the civilized world. 

Dwight's principal work is his Theology, 5 vols., 8vo. He published Travels in New Eng- 
land and New York, 4 vols., containing notes of things which he had observed during a 
course of years in his sunmier vacations. He published also Sermons and Addresses on 
Special Occasions, 2 vols. In addition to his theological works, Dr. Dwight published sev- 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 79 

er;i1 poems: America, a poom ia the style of Pope's Windsor Forest ; The Conquest of Ca- 
naan, an epic in eleven books; Greenfield Hill, a poem ; The Triumph of Infidelity, a satire. 
Among his literary labors should be mentioned his revision of Watts's Psalms. The 
revision by Barlow not being satisfactory, the General Association committed the work of 
further revision to Dr. Dwight. In this work, he added translations of his own, of such 
Psalms as Watts had not attempted, and annexed a selection of Hymns. The work wiis ap- 
proved and adopted, not only by the Association, but also by the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian Church. Dwight's versioD of the 139th Psalm, beginning with the words, 

I love thy kingdom. Lord, 
has been a general favorite. 

Dwight's satirical poem. The Triumph of Infidelity, 1788, was occasioned by the rampant 
infidelity then prevalent, particularly in France. It is dedicated very appropriately to the 
arch infidel of that age. 

DEDICATION TO VOLTAIRK 

" Sir, your Creator endued you with shiniug talents, and cast your lot in the field of action 
where they might be most happily employed. In the progress of a long and industrious 
life, you devoted them to a single purpose, the elevation of your character above His. For 
the accomplishment of this purpose, with a diligence and uniformity which would have 
adorned the most virtuous pursuits, you opposed truth, religion, and their authors, with 
sophistry, contempt, and obloquy : and taught, as far as your example or sentiments ex- 
tended their influence, that the chief end of man wjis, to slander his God, and abuse him 
forever. To whom could such an effort as the following be dedicated with more propriety 
than to you ?" 

The following passage from this satire would make a good companion picture to some of 
the sketches in Witherspoon's Ecclesiastical Characteristics: 

THE SMOOTH DIVINE. 

There smil'd the smooth Divine, nnus'd to wound 

The sinner's heart with hell's alarming sound. 

No terrors on his gentle tongue attend; 

No grating truths the nicest ear offend. 

That strange new-birth, that methodistic grace. 

Nor in his heart nor sermons found a place, 

Plato's fine tales he clumsily retold, 

Trite, fireside, moral seesaws dull as old ; 

His Chiist, and Bible, plac'd at good remove. 

Guilt hell-descrviug, and forgiving love. 

'Tvvas be^t, he said, mankind should cease to sin; 

Good fame requir'd it; so did peace within: 

Their honours, well he knew, would ne'er be driven. 

But hop'd they still would please to go to heaven. 

Each week he paid his visitation dues; 

Coax'd, jested, langh'd ; rehears'd the private news; 

Smok'd with each goody, thought her cheese excell'd; 

Her pipe he lighted, and her baby held. 

Or plac'd in some grcjit town, with lacquer'd shoes. 

Trim wig, and trimmer gown, and glistening hose. 

He bow'd, talk'd politics, learn'd manners mild; 

Most meekly question'd, and most smoothly smil'd ; 

At rich men's jests laugh'd loud, their stories prais'd; 

Their wives' new patterns gaz'd, and gaz'd, and gaz'a; 



80 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Most daintily on pamper'd tnrMes din'd; 
Nor shrunk with fasting, nor with study pin'd ; 
Yet from their churches saw his brethren driven. 
Who thunderd truth, and spoke the voice of heaven, 
Chill'd trembling guilt in Satan's headlong path, 
Charm'd the feet back, and roused the ear of death. 
"Let fools," he cried, "starve on, while prudent I 
Snug in my nest shall live, and snug shall die." 

Jacob DuchjI, D. D^ 1739-1798, was a native of Philadelphia, and rector of Christ's Church 
and of St. Peter's in that city. His pulpit oratory was greatly admired, and two volumes of 
his Sermons have been printed. He deserted the cause of Independence, and wrote a Letter 
to Washington urging him to do likewise. He went over to England during the war, but 
returned to Philadelphia afterwards. 

Samuel CcBYrEW, 1715-1802, was a native of Salem, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, of the 
class of 1735. He became Judge of the Admiralty. Not sympathizing with the popular cause, 
he was obliged to take refuge in England, but returned after the war ajid lived unmolested 
in his native town until his death. While in England, he kept a journal, giving an account 
of his experiences. He appears to have been something of a gossip, seeiqg with insatiable 
curiosity whatever was to be seen, and recording with diligence what be saw. Besides 
chatty interviews with the facetious Joseph Green, ex-Governor Hutchinson, and other refu- 
gees, we have lively sketches of "John Wesley's Preachment," of Charles James Fox, and 
various other English celebrities. His work, sent in detached pieces to his nieces, was 
printed in 1842, with the title. Journal and Letters of the late Samuel Curwen, Judge of 
Admiralty, an American Refugee in England, from 1775 to 1784. 



Mather Byles. 

Mather Byles, D. D., 1706-1788, an eloquent preacher of Boston, had 
a great reputation as a wit and a poet. 

Byles was descended on the mother's side from old Richard Mather and John Cotton. He 
was a man of rare eloquence as a preacher, and some of his sermons have gone through 
repeated editions. In the earlier part of his life, he published several poems, which were 
well received, and he was throughout life celebrated for his wit. In punning and lively 
repartee, he especially excelled. 

Byles was a loyalist, but does not seem to have been active on the Tory side. Neutrality, 
however, was not tolerated in those times, and Byles was obliged to give up his church. He 
was put under arrest, and ordered to go to England. The order, however, was not carried 
out, and Byles died in Boston in retirement. 

Byles was well known in England in his day, among his correspondents being Pope, Watts, 
and others. He received from Pope a handsome copy of his Odyssey in quarto. 

He published the following poems: On the Death of Lady Belcher; On the Death of the 
Queen ; An Elegy on the Death of Daniel Oliver ; The Comet ; The Conflagration ; The God 
of Tempest, etc. 

Some contemporary verses by one of the wags of the day show Byles's reputation for pun- 
ning and repartee. 

There's punning Byles provokes our smiles, 

A man of stately parts ; 
He visits folks to crack his jokes. 

Which never mend their hearts. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 81 

With strutting gait and wig so great, 

He walks along the streets ; 
And throws out wit, or what's like it, 

To every one he meets. 

In 1780 occurred a day known as " the dark day." A lady sent her sou into his house to 
inquire the cause of the darkness. " My dear," said the Doctor, " tell your mother that I 
am as much in the dark as she is." 

When the British troops, or "red coats," marched into Boston, "Ah," said Byles, " now 
our grievances will be red-dressed." 



Joseph Green. 

JosiEPH Greex, 1706-1780, is associated with Byles, as one of the humor- 
ists of the day. Green was a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard. 
He was a distiller by trade, and amassed a large fortune. He did not en- 
gage actively in politics, but used his pen freely on social subjects, for the 
amusement of the town. His writings were mostly in verse, and of the 
humorous kind. His satire, so far as it touched on political affairs, was 
used on the side of freedom, but he was disinclined to turmoil, and in 1775, 
when it was evident that hostilities were about to begin, he went to England 
for repose, and remained there until his death. 

Some brother wag, in 1743, wrote a humorous epitaph on Green, which 
shows the popular estimate of him : 

Siste, Viator : here lies one 

Whose life was whim, whose soul was pun. 

And if you go too near his hearse, 

He '11 joke you, both in prose and verse. 

Byles and Green had many a friendly tilt. One of Green's best essays In this line was a 
mock heroic poem on the death of Byles's favorite cat. Tliis pet of the good Doctor's was 
called his Muse, and it was said he never felt the inspiration of song unless Pussy was some- 
where about his chair. 

The Poet's Lamextation for the loss of his Cat, which he used to call his Muse. 
Felis q.nedam deliciura erat ciyusdam Adolescentis. — JEsop. 

Oppress'd with grief, in heavy strains I mourn 

The partner of my studies from me torn. 
\ How shall I sing? what numbers shall I chuse? 

For in my fav'rite cat I 've lost my muse. 

No more I feel my mind with raptures fir'd, 

I want those aira that Puss so oft inspir'd; 

No crowding thoughts my ready fancy fill. 

Nor words run fluent from my easy quill ; 

Yet shall my verse deplore her cruel fate. 

Anil celebrate the virtues of my cat. 
F 



82 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



She never thirsted for the chickens' hlood ; 

Her teeth she only used to chew her food ; 

Harmless as satires which her master writes, 

A foe to scratching, and unused to hites. 

She in the study was my constant mate ; 

There we together many evenings sate. 

Whene'er I felt my tow'ring fancy fail, 

I stroked her head, her ears, her back, her tail ; 

And as I stroked improved my dying song 

From the sweet notes of her melodious tongue : 

Her purrs and mews so evenly kept time, 

She purr'd in metre, and she mew'd in rhyme. 

But when my dulness has too stubborn prov'd. 

Nor could by Puss's music be remov'd, 

Oft to the well-known volumes have I gone. 

And stole a line from Pope or Addison. 

Ofttimes when lost amidst poetic heat. 

She leaping on my knee has took her seat: 

There saw the throes that rock'd my lab'ring brain, 

And lick'd and claw'd me to myself again. 

Then, friends, indiilge my grief, and let me mourn, 

My cat is gone, ah! never to return. 

Now in my study all the tedious night 

Alone I sit, and unassisted write ; 

Look often round (0 greatest cause of pain), 

And view the num'rous labors of my brain ; 

Those quires of words array'd in pompous rhyme, 

Which brave the jaws of all -devouring time. 

Now undefended and unwatch'd bj' cats. 

Are doom'd a victim to the teeth of rats. 



Samuel Peters. 

Samuel Peters, 1735-1826, a clergyman of Connecticut who was obliged 
to leave the country on account of his Tory opinions, retaliated on his per- 
secutors by publishing a pretended General History of Connecticut. 

Peters is the man referred to in McFingal as " Parson Peters." His work has all the ap- 
pearance of a veritable history, and by many was received as such. It is not certain, indeed, 
whether he intended it as a piece of waggery, like Knickerbocker's History of New York, or 
whether it was written in a fit of spleen. If the latter, his misrepresentations are so patent 
as to have no effect except to turn the laugh upon himself. The work altogether is a curi- 
osity. Two short extracts are given. The first is a scrap of physical geography that will 
probably be new even to Prof. Guyot. 

NARROWS IN THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. 
" Two hundred miles from the Sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving 
mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds. Through this chasm are com- 
pelled to pass all the waters which in the time of the liouds bury the northern country. At 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 83 

the upper cohos the river theu spreads several miles wide, and for five or six weeks ships of 
war might sail over hinds that afterwards jjroduce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all 
America. People who can hear the sight, the groans, the trcmhiings, and surly motion of 
water, trees, and ice through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest 
phenomenons in nature. Hex-e water is consolidated, without frost, by pressure, by swift- 
ness, between the pinching, sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration that an iron crow 
floats smoothly down its current: — here iron, lead, and cork have one common weight: — 
here, steady as time, and harder than marble, the stream passes, irresistible, if not swift as 
lightning: — the electric fire rends trees in pieces with no greater ease than does this 
mighty water. The passage is about four hundred yards in length, and of a zigzag form, 
with obtuse corners." 

The following piece of natural history is equally remarkable : 

THE FROGS OF WINDHAM. 

" Strangers are very much terrified at the hideous noise made on summer evenings by the 
vast number .of frogs in the brooks and ponds. There are about thirty different voices 
among them; some of which resemble the bellowing of a bull. The owls and whippoor- 
wills complete the rough concert, which may be heard several miles. Persons accustomed 
to such serenades are not disturbed by them at their proper stations ; but one night in July, 
1758, the frogs of an artificial pond, three miles square, and about five from Windham, find- 
ing the water dried up, left the place in a body, and marched, or rather hopped towards 
Winnomantic River. They were under the necessity of taking the road and going through 
the town, which they entered about midnight. The bull frogs were the leaders, and the 
pipers followed without number. They filled a road forty yards wide for four miles in length, 
and were for several hours in passing through the town, unusually clamorous. The inhabi- 
tants were equally perplexed and frightened ; some expected to find an army of French and 
Indians ; others feared an earthquake, and dissolution of nature. The consternation was uni- 
versal : old and young, male and female, fled naked from their beds with worse shrieking than 
those of the frogs. The event was fatal to several women. The men, after a flight of half 
a mile, in which they met with many broken shins, finding no enemies in pursuit of them, 
made a halt, and summoned resolution enough to venture back to their wives and children ; 
when they distinctly heard from the enemy's camp these words : Wight, Hilderken, Dier, Tete. 
The last they thought meant treaty, and plucking up courage, they sent a triumvirate to 
capitulate with the supposed French and Indians. Those three men approached in their 
shirts, and begged to speak, to the general ; but it being dark, and no answer given, they 
were sorely agitated for some time betwixt hope and fear ; at length, however, they discov- 
ered that the dreaded inimical army was an army of thirsty frogs going to the river for a 
little water." 

Peters was a native of Hebron, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1757. 
He was ordained in England, and returning to Connecticut, preached in Hebron and other 
places. As he was opposed to the Revolution, and was suspected of being in correspondence 
with the enemy, he was obliged to flee to England. He returned to America in 18U5, and 
settled in New York, where he lived until his death, in his ninety-first year. He was an 
odd genius, and he wrote many things, both in England and Americiv. But the History 
of Connecticut, whatever may have been his design, was the most remarkable, 

Benjamin Young Prime, M. D,, 1733-1791, was a native of Huntington, Long Island, and a 
graduate of Princeton, of the cbiss of 1751. He studied medicine at Leyden, and was versed 
in French and Spanish, as well as in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He had the pen of a ready 
writer, and during the Revolutionary period helped to uphold his country's cause by patri- 
otic songs and balUuls. Dr. Prime's first poetical works were produced before the war of 
Independence. The Patriot Muse, published iu Loudon in 176-1, is a collection containing 



84 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

poems on Braddock's D?feat, on the taking of Quebec, on Gov. Belcher of New Jersey, and 
on President Burr of Princeton, etc. The ode on the capture of Quebec is called Britain's 
Glory, or Gallia's Pride Humbled. In 1791, he published a long poem of 1441 lines, intended 
in part as a parody of this, and called Columbia's Glory, or British Pride Humbled. 

Dr. Prime was the grandfather of the gentlemen of that name who publish the New York 
Observer. The men of that family for five generations have been college-bred men, and 
nearly all of them have been ministers. 

Governor Livingston. 

William Livingston, LL.D., 1723-1790, Governor of New Jersey, was 
one of the most effective writers of the times. He wrote a poem, called 
Philosophic Solitude, and several series of Essays on political and social 
questions. 

These Essays were modelled in some respects after The Spectator. One series bore the 
name of The Independent Reflector ; another was called The Watch Tower ; another. The 
Sentinel; another, The American Whig ; still another. The Primitive Whig. 

Livingston was born in Albany, and was graduated at Yale, in 1741, at the head of his 
class. He studied law in the city of New York, and remained there until 1772, when he 
retired to a country-seat at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. During his long residence in New 
York, he took an active part in nearly all public measures. He published, in 1757, A Review 
of the Military Operations in North America, being intended as a defence of Gov. Shirley. 
He published in the same year A Funeral Eulogium on Aaron Burr, President of the College 
of New Jersey. One of his essays that made some stir was entitled A New Sermon on an 
Old Text, " Touch not Mine Anointed." Livingston undertook to show that the "anointed " 
spoken of are not monarchs, but the people. 

When the Jerseymen had sent Governor Franklin out of the State, Livingston was in 1776 
elected Governor of New Jersey, and continued to be elected annually until the time of his 
death. He was a brother of the Philip Livingston who signed the Declaration of Independ- 
ence as a delegate from New York. 

Governor Hutchinson. 

Thomas Hutchinson, 1711-1780, royal Governor of Massachusetts at 
the time of the outbreak of the Eevolution, contributed to the literature of 
the day A History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. 

Hutchinson's History begins with "the first settlement in 1628," and is brought down to 
the year 1774. It is in 3 vols., of which two were published during his life, and the third, 
left in manuscript and containing the history from 1750 to 1774, was printed in England, 
in 182'<. 

Hutchiuson was a descendant from the celebrated Ann Hutchinson. He was a native of 
Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1727. He took an active part in all colo- 
nial affairs, rising gradually to the office of Governor. In consequence of his leaning to the 
English side, in the controversy between the Colonies and the mother country, he became 
very unpopular, and was obliged finally to take refuge in England, where he received a pen- 
sion, but was treated otherwise with neglect. 

Charles Thomson, 1729-1824, the patriot Secretary of the Continental Congress, was born 
in Ireland. He emigrated to America <at the age of eleven and settled in Philadelphia. He 
was educated by Rev. Francis Alison, and afterwards taught the Friends' Academy, in Phila- 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 85 

delphia. He was Secretary to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789. He died in 
Lower Merion, near Philadelphia, in the ninety-fifth year of his age. He wrote A Transla- 
tion of the Bible, 4 vols., 8vo, the Old Testament being translated from the Septuagint; An 
Inquiry into the Cause of the Alienation of the Delaware and ghawanese Indians. 



Fisher Ames. 

Fisher Ajfes, 1758-1808, contributed much, by his writings and speeches, 
towards the consolidation of the Government, after the war of Independence. 

Ames was bom at Dedham, Massachusetts, and was graduated at Harvard, in the class of 
1774. He was a fine classical scholar and a brilliant writer, as well as an impressive speaker. 
He belonged to the Federal party, and was an active and influential statesman during the 
administration of Washington. His works have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. They con- 
sist mainly of speeches and essays, and are models of style. 

In ail the writings of this period, there are none that exceed those of Fisher Ames in 
vigor of thought and expression. He was remarkable for the aptness of his classical allu- 
sions and for the frequency and beauty of his comparisons. These are so numerous, indeed, 
that the reader would weary of them as needless ornament, were it not for the intense ear- 
nestness that everywhere breathes through the glowing periods. 

Fisher Ames was a devout admirer of Alexander Hamilton, and deplored his untimely loss 
in terms of almost passionate eloquence. " It is not as Apollo, enchanting the shepherds 
with his lyre, that we deplore him ; it is as Hercules, treacherously slain in the midst of his 
unfinished labors, leaving the world overrun with monsters." "The tears that flow on this 
fond recital will never dry up. My heart, penetrated with the remembrance of the man, 
grows liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could weep, too, for my coun- 
try, which, mournful as it is, does not know the half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it 
turns its eyes back and sees what Hamilton was ; but my soul stiffens with despair when I 
think what Hamilton would have been." 

John "Winthrop, LL. D., 1714-1779, a descendant in the fourth generation from the first 
Governor of Massachusetts, old John TVinthrop, was born in Boston, and graduated at Har- 
vard, in the class of 1732. From 1738 to 1779 he was Hollis Professor of Mathematics and 
Natural Philosophy, and he twice declined the Presidency of the College. He published A 
Lecture on Earthquakes ; Two Lectures on Comets ; A Voyage to Newfoundland to observe 
the Transit of Venus, in 1761; Two Lectures on the Parallax and Distance of the Sun, as de- 
ducible from the Transit of Venus, etc. He took an active part in the struggle for Inde- 
pendence. 

Benjamin Rush. 

Benjamin Rush, M. D., 1745-1813, besides his medical writings, which 
placed him in the front rank in his profession, wrote much on popular sub- 
jects, and took an active part in various ways in the struggle for national 
independence. 

Dr. Rush was born near Philadelphia, and graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1760. 
He studied medicine afterwards at Eflinburgh, Paris, and London, and in 1769 was appointed 
a professor in the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. During the war of the 
Revolution, Dr. Rush was appointed Surgeon and Physician General for the Hospitals of the 
Middle States. He took a prominent part in politics, being an ardent supporter of the Revo- 
lution and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was also a member 

8 



86 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of the State Convention that adopted the Constitution of the United States. During the last 
fourteen years of his life he was Treasurer of the U. S. Mint. 

In 1793, while Philadelphia was visited with the yellow fever, Dr. Rush distinguished him- 
self by his successful practice and his spirit of devotion. For this and for other medical 
services, he was honored with presents from the King of Prussia and the Emperor of 
Russia, 

Dr. Rush's works have been collected and published in 7 vols., 8vo. The first six are upon 
topics of medicine or hygiene. Volume seven contains his Essays, Literary, Moral, and 
Philosophical. Besides these original works. Dr. Rush also edited the works of Sydenham, 
and numerous detached medical treatises. It is estimated that more than two thousand 
medical pupils were instructed by him in the University of Pennsylvania. 

Anthony Benezet, 1713-1784, a member of the Society of Friends, was born in France, but 
was mainly resident in Philadelphia, to which he came in 1731, and in which he taught 
school. He published A Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies, on the subject of slavery, 
in 1767, and an Historical Account of Guinea, in 1772, giving the rise and progress of the 
slave-trade. The works of this philanthropist are said to have first awakened the attention 
of Clarkson and Wilberforce to this subject. Some interesting anecdotes of this good man 
were published by Dr. Rush. 

Thomas Godfrey, 1736-1763, a native of Philadelphia and a son of the Godfrey who in- 
vented the " Quadrant," was the author of several poems of some note. Among these were 
The Prince of Parthia, a drama ; The Court of Fancy, a poem modelled after Chaucer's House 
of Fame ; and other smaller pieces. 

John Dickinson. 

John Dickinson, 1732-1808, was one of the leading publicists in Penn- 
sylvania in the controversy between the Colonies and the mother coun- 
try, before and durmg the war of Independence. Many of the state papers 
of that period which elicited such glowing eulogy from Chatham, were 
written by Dickinson. 

Dickinson was born in Maryland, but lived chiefly in Delaware. He studied law in Phil- 
adelphia, and afterwards in London. 

Among the papers written by Dickinson were the celebrated Petition to the King; The Sec- 
ond Petition to the King ; Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer to the Inhabitants of the 
British Colonies, written in 1767-8 ; Letters of Fabius, 1788, intended to promote the adop- 
tion of the Constitution ; Letters of Fabius, 1797, intended to promote a triendly feeling 
towards France. His political writings were collected and published in 2 vols., 8vo. 

" The Petition to the King won the highest admiration on both sides of the Atlantic, and 
will remain an imperishable monument to the glory of its author, and of the assembly of 
which he was a member, so long as fervid and manly eloquence, and chaste and elegant com- 
position shall be appreciated." — TJiomas A. Budd. 

"Mr. Dickinson's style was distinguished by perspicuity, vigor, and a flowing eloquence 
admirably suited to the exciting topics which commanded his pen." — Allihone. 

Pelatiah Webster, 1725-1797, was born at Lebanon, Ct., and graduated at Yale, in the 
class of 1746. He preached for some years in Massachusetts. In 1755, he went to Philadel- 
phia, embarked in business, and amassed a fortune. Being an active patriot, he was thrown 
into prison by the British when they had possession of Philadelphia. He wrote several 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 87 

essays on public affairs : On the Redemption of the Continental Money ; On Free Trade and 
Finance ; On Credit, explaining the theory on which banks are founded; On the Restoration 
of the Charter to the Bank of Nof th America ; On the Political Union of the Thirteen 
States, etc. 

Gen. Joseph Reed, 1741-1785, was a native of Trenton, N. J., and a graduate of Princeton, 
of the class of 1757. General Reed was in active service in the war of Independence ; was 
a Member of Congress in 1777 ; and President .of Pennsylvania from 1778 to 1781. He pub- 
lished several pamphlets of a controversial character: Remarks on Gov. Johnstone's Speech 
in ParUament ; Remarks on a Late Publication in the Independent Gazetteer, etc. His Life 
and Correspondence, in 2 vols., 8vo, has been published by his grandson, Wm. B. Reed. 

David Ramsay. 

DA^^D Eamsay, M. D., 1749-1815, was the earliest American historian 
of note. His chief works are A History of the United States, and A His- 
tory of South Carolina. 

Ramsay was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and graduated at Princeton, in the 
class of 1765. He studied medicine in Philadelphia, and in 1773 went to Charleston, South 
Carolina, to practise, and continued to reside there the remainder of his days. He was an 
accomplished scholar, and was universally esteemed for the purity of his life, and for his 
patriotic and benevolent labors. He was for many years a member of the South Carolina 
Legislature, and for three years, 1782-5, a member of the National Congress, and a part of 
the time its President. He married first a daughter of President Witherspoon, of Princeton 
College, and afterwards a daughter of Henry Laurens, of South Carolina. He was shot by a 
lunatic in the streets of Charleston. 

Dr. Ramsay's works are the following : A History of the Revolution of South Carolina ; A 
History of South Carolina, from its Settlement in 1670 to the Year 1808, 2 vols., 8vo; A His- 
tory of the American Revolution, 2 vols., 8vo ; A History of the United States, from 1607 to 
1808, 3 vols., 8vo ; Universal History Americanized, or An Historical Tiew of the World from 
the Earliest Records to the Nineteenth Century, 12 vols., 8vo, the first three volumes of the 
collection being the history of the United States just mentioned. This work sprang from 
a desire to give an abridgment of the old Universal History, in 65 vols. The project was a 
failure. Besides these Histories, Dr. Ramsay wrote A Life of Washington, which was in the 
main an abridgment of Marshall's ; Memoirs of Mrs. Martha Laurens Ramsay ; A History 
of the Congregational Church in Charleston, and numerous Orations, Addresses, and Pam- 
phlets of various kinds. 

Dr. Ramsay did not rise to the dignity of a classical historian. His works are wanting in 
artistic treatment. But they are eminently truthful and accurate, and they can never be 
safely ignored by those who wish to be well acquainted with the history of the United States. 
He had the advantage of living in close relationship to the affairs which he describes, and 
in many of them he was an eye-witness and an actor; and he has withal, like John Marshall, 
that character for entire honesty and for sobriety of judgment, which makes his testimony, 
and in most cases also his opinions, authoritative and final. 

William Henry Drayton, 1742-1779, was a native of South Carolina, and one of the lead- 
ing men who brought about the struggle for Americjvn Indepeudence, and Mas a member of 
the Continental Congress at the time of his death. He compiled a History of the American 
Revolution. — John Drayton, 1760-1822, son of William Henry Drayton and Governor of 
South Carolina. He wrote A View of South Carolina; and also edited the History of the 
American Revolution, left in MS. by his father. 



88 AMEBICAN LITERATURE. 

Henry Lee. 

Henry Lee, 1756-1818, the celebrated partisan leader in the vrar of 
Independence, wrote a valuable historical work, Memoirs of the War in 
the Southern Department of the United States. 

Lee was a native of Virginia, and a graduate of Princeton, of tlie class of 1773. He was 
appointed by Congress to pronounce the Funeral Oration on the Death of Washington. In 
this oration occurs the phrase, which originated with Lee, "First in war, first in peace, first 
in the hearts of his countrymen." 

Henry Lee, 1787-1837, son of the preceding, and a native of Virginia, was educated at 
"William and Mary. He wrote The Campaign of 1761 in the Carolinas ; Observations on the 
Writings of Thomas Jefferson ; The Life of the Emperor Napoleon, etc. 

Arthur Lee, M. D., 1740-1782, a native of Virginia, and a brother of Richard Henry Lee, 
took an active part in the political discussions which resulted in the separation of the Amer- 
ican Colonies from England. He wrote Letters by Monitor ; Letters by Junius American us ; 
Observations on Certain Commercial Transactions in France, etc. 

JosiAH QuiNCT, Jr., 1744-1775, was a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, of the 
class of 1763. He took an active part in the political discussions which led to the war of 
Independence. He published, in the Boston Gazette, in 1767, Essays on the Oppressive 
Measures of the British Parliament ; in 1771-2, another series of Essays of a like tenor ; in 
1774, Observations on the Act of Parliament commonly called the Boston Port Bill. 

James Sullivan, LL. D., 1744-1808, was born at Berwick, Maine ; was Judge of the Su- 
preme Court of -Connecticut in 1776 ; Member of Congress in 1782-3 ; Attorney-General from 
1790 to 1807; and Governor of Massachusetts in 1807 and 1808. He published Strictures on 
Mr. Thacher's Observations on the New England Clergy ; Observations on the Government 
of the United States ; The Path to Riches ; Biography of Governor Hancock ; The Altar of 
Baal thrown Down, or the French Nation Defeated; History of the District of Maine; His- 
tory of Land Tillers in Massachusetts ; Dissertation on the Constitutional Freedom of the 
Press. * 

David Humphreys, LL.D., 1753-1818, was a native of Derby, Connecticut, and a graduate 
of Yale, of the class of 1771. He was a colonel in the army of the Revolution, and aide-de- 
camp to Washington. He was the author of a number of pieces in prose and verse, among 
which are : A Poem on the Happiness of America ; The Widow of Malabar ; and a Life of 
General Putnam. 

Bishop White. 

Et. Eev. William White, D. D., 1748-1836, for fifty years Bishop of 
Pennsylvania, and for the last forty years of that time presiding Bishop of 
the Episcopal Church in the United States, though not a voluminous author, 
yet wrote several valuable works, and exercised in various ways an im- 
portant influence on public opinion. 

Bishop White was bom in Philadelphia, and resided there all his life. He graduated at 
the University of Pennsylvania, in 1765, and was ordained in England, as deacon in 1770, as 
priest in 1772, and as bishop in 1787. He was assistant of Christ Church and of St. Peter's, 
Philadelphia, from 1772 to 1779, and rector of both from 1779 to his death in 1836. He waa 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 89 

elected Bishop of Pennsylrania in 1786, and became senior Bishop on the death of Bishop 
Seabury, in 1796. He was chaplain to the Continental Congress during its sessions in Phila- 
delphia in 1777. 

Bishop White published the following works : The Case of the Episcopal Church in the 
United States Considered ; Lectures on the Catechism of the Episcopal Church ; Compara- 
tive View of the Controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians ; Memoir of the 
Episcopal Church in the United States ; Commentary on the Offices for the Ordaining of 
Priests and Deacons. 

Bishop White was a man of great moderation and good sense, and was revered by men of 
all denominations. 

Sabttjel Sbabubt, D. D., 1729-1796, was consecrated as Bishop of Connecticut in 1784, and 
was the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. He published 
two volumes of Sermons, besides occasional Discourses. " Seabury was a man of strong na- 
tive powers, of cultivated intellect, and extensive influence, and ardent in the cause of 
Episcopacy." — Dr. John W. Francis. 

William Sbhth, D. D., 1727-1803, was a native of Aberdeen, Scotland, and a graduate of 
the University of that place, in the class of 1747. He emigrated to America soon after, and 
in 1754 became Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. His Works were printed in 2 
vols., 8vo, in 1803, with a preface by Bishop White. They consisted chiefly of Addresses, 
Orations, Sermons, and Letters. 



Jonathan Mayhe-w. 

Eev. Jonathan Ma v: hew, 1720-1766, was one of tliose clergymen 
whose stirring eloquence lieli)ed to quicken the pulse of patriotic feeling. 

Mayhew was a native of Martha's Vineyard, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 
1744. He was pastor of the West Church, Boston, from 1747 to his death in 1766. He 
preached, as early as 1750, a sermon in reference to the execution of Charles I., showing bold 
and independent views in regard to the extent of allegiance. He took an active part in the 
discussion upon the conduct of The Society for the Propagation of Christianity in Foreign 
Parts, on account of its alleged attempts to introduce Episcopacy into New England. The 
most striking and vigorous of his published discourses was A Sermon on the Repeal of the 
Stamp Act, in 1766. 

ON THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. 

" We have never known so quick and general a transition from the depth of sorrow to the 
height of joy, as on this occasion ; nor, indeed, so great and universal a flow of either, on 
any other occasion whatever. It is very true, we have heretofore seen times of great adver- 
sity. We have known seasons of drought, dearth, and spreading mortal diseases; the pesti- 
lence walking in darkness, and the destruction wasting at noonday. We have seen wide 
devastations made by fire; and amazing tempests, the heavens on flame, the winds and 
■waves roaring. We have known repeated earthquakes, threatening us with speedy destruc- 
tion. We have been under great apprehensions by reason of formidable fleets of an enemy 
on our coasts, menacing fire and sword to all maritime towns. We have known times when 
the French and Savage armies made terrible havock on our frontiers, carrying all before 
them for a while ; when wo were not without fear that some capital towns in the colonies 
would fall into their merciless hands. Such times as these we have known: at some of 
which almost every ' face gathered paleness,' and the knees of all but the good and brave 
waxed feeble. But never have we known a season of such uuiTersal constematioa and anx- 
8* 



90 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

iety among the people of all ranks and ages, in these colonies, as was occasioned by that 
parliamentary procedure, which threatened us and our posterity with perpetual bondage 
and slavery. For they, as w^e generally suppose, are really slaves to all intents and pur- 
poses, who are obliged to labor and toil only for the benefit of others ; or, which comes to 
the same thing, the fruit of whose labor and industry may be lawfully taken from them 
without their consent, and they justly punished if they refuse to surrender it on demand, or 
apply it to other purposes than tliose which their masters, of their mere grace and pleasure, 
see fit to allow. Nor are there many American understandings acute enough to distinguish 
any material difference between this being done by a single person, under the title of an 
absolute monarch, and done by a far-distant legislature consisting of many persons, in which 
they are not represented ; and the members whereof, instead of feeling and sharing equally 
with them in the burden thus imposed, are eased by their own in proportion to the great- 
ness and weight of it. It may be questioned, whether the ancient Greeks or Romans, or any 
other nation in which slavery was allowed, carried their idea of it much farther than this. 
So that our late apprehensions, and universal consternation, on account of ourselves and 
posterity, were far, very far indeed, from being groundless. For what is there in this world 
more wretched than for those who were born free, and have a right to continue so, to be 
made slaves themselves, and to think of leaving a race of slaves behind them ; even though 
it be to masters confessedly the most humane and generous in the world! Or what wonder 
is it, if after groaning with a low voice for a while to no purpose, we at length groaned so 
loudly as to be heard more than three thousand miles ; and to be pitied throughout Europe, 
wherever it is not hazardous to mention even the name of liberty, unless it be to reproach 
it, as only another name for sedition, faction, or rebellion? " 

Jeremiah Leaming, D. D., 1719-1804, was a native of Middleto\\Ti, Connecticut, and a grad- 
uate of Yale. He was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, and was held in high estima- 
tion. He wrote A Defence of the Episcopal Government of the Church ; Evidences of the 
Truth of Christianity, etc. 

Nathan Strong, D. D., 1748-1816, was bom at Coventry, Connecticut, and graduated at 
Yale, in the class of 1769. He was pastor of the First Church, in Hartford. Publications : 
The Doctrine of Eternal Misery Consistent with the Infinite Benevolence of God ; two vol- 
umes of Sermons; a large number of single Discourses. Dr. Strong contributed to the 
Hartford Collection of Hymns, and originated and edited The Connecticut Evangelical 
Magazine. 

Samuel Hopkins. 

Samuel Hopkins, D. D., 1721-1803, is celebrated in theological annals 
as the founder of the Hopkinsian scheme of divinity. 

Hopkins was a native of Waterbury, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale. He studied the- 
ology under Jonathan Edwards, and preached at Great Barrington, Mass., at Newport, R. I., 
and other places. He published various works, but his chief performance was The System 
of Doctrines contained in Divine Revelation. " Hopkins sought to add to the five points of 
Calvinism the rather heterogeneous ingredient that holiness consists in pure, disinterested 
benevolence, and that all regard for self is necessarily sinful." — HUdreth, 

Jonathan Edwards, Jr., D.D., 1745-1801, a son of the first President Edwards, was a grad- 
uate and a tutor of the College of New Jersey, and President of Union College, Schenectady. 
He published a number of Sermons aud theological Essays, and was a contributor to the 
New York Theological Magazine. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 91 

Rev. Jeremy Belknap, 17-t4:-1798, a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard. Chiefly 
known by his History of New Hampshire, 4 vols., and by his American Biography, 3 vols. 
Ho also wrote Foresters, a work descriptive of American manners, and marked by wit and 
humor. The strictly historical part of his work on New Hampshire is more valuable than 
that relating to its natural history, his attainments in such subjects being limited even for 
those times. 

Rev. Isaac Backus, 1724-1S06, a native of Connecticut, was a distinguished Baptist minis- 
ter. He wrote A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Baptists. 

Elhanan Winchester, 1751-1797, one of the earliest Universalist preachers of the United 
States, was born at Brookline, Massachusetts. He was at first a Baptist, preaching at New- 
ton, Massachusetts, and on the Pedce River, South Carolina, but in 1781 became a preacher 
of universal restoration, and labored in Philadelphia and in England. He published The 
Universal Restoration ; Course of Lectures on the Prophecies ; The Three War Trumpets ; 
Progress of the Empire of Christ ; Poems and Hymns. 

Rev. John Heckwelder, 1743-1810, a native of Bedford, England, labored for many years 
as a Moravian missionary among the Delaware Indians, and published a series of papers 
containing the results of his observations upon their language, habits, and character. The 
views adopted by Heckwelder have been warmly attacked by General Cass and as warmly 
defended by Nathan Hale. Upon the whole, we may say that Cass's judgment of Heck- 
welder, as a man utterly wanting in accuracy of observation and in scientific spirit, has 
gained the day, although it is generally admitted that the Delawares whom he extols are 
the best and most docile of all the Indian tribes. 

Phillis ^Vheatley. 

Petilms Wheatley, 1754-1784, was the negro phenomenon of the last 
century. 

Phillis was a native of Senegal, Africa, brought in a slave-ship to Boston when a child, 
and bought in the slave-market of that city by Mrs. Wheatley, the wife of a Boston mer- 
chant. Mrs. Wheatley, wanting a maid to attend upon her person, and being pleased with 
the appearance of this child, gave her opportunities for mental culture. Phillis learned 
rapidly, studying not only the ordinary English branches, but Latin also. Her parts and at- 
fciinments attracting attention, she was much noticed, and had the advantage of conversation 
and of social intercourse with the most edu.cated and refined people in Boston. In 1772, she 
was taken to England, on account of her health, and while there a volume of her Poems was 
published under the patronage of the Countess of Huntingdon. She returned to Boston in 
1773. Her master and mistress both dying soon after, and their son settling in England, 
Phillis, left without a protector, married a "Doctor" Peters, a man of her own race. The 
marriage was an unhappy one, and Phillis died in poverty and neglect. 

Mrs. Elizabeth (Graeme) Ferguson, 1739-1801, was a native of Philadelphia, and a 
daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme. She was married to Hugh II. Ferguson, a Scotchman, 
from whom she separated on the outbreak of the Revolution, because he adhered to the 
British Government. She was a woman of fine literary culture, and published numerous 
minor Poems and Letters. She translated also Fenelon's Telemachus into English heroic 
verse. 



92 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Susanna Rowson. 

Susanna Kowson, 1761-1824, was famous in her day as the author of 
Charlotte Temple. 

Mrs. Rowson was the daughter of Lieutenant "William Haswell, of the British navy. At 
the age of seven she came with her father to New England. While still a child, she, by her 
precocious talents, won applause from James Otis and others in the highest circles in Bos- 
ton. In 1784 she went to London, and in 1786 she was married there to William Rowson. 
About the same time she began authorship, and published in rapid succession several novels, 
— Tictoria, Mary or The Test of Honor, The Fille de Chambre, The Inquisitor, and Charlotte 
Temple. The last-named work had a great success, 25,000 copies being sold, and is the only 
work by which she is now known. She wrote also A Trip to Parnassus, and A Critique of 
Authors and Performers. 

In 1793, Mrs. Rowson returned to the United States, and was engaged as an actress for the 
next three years in Philadelphia and Boston. In 1796, she retired from the stage, and open- 
ing a school for young ladies, was very successful, having pupils from the West Indies, 
from the British provinces, and from all parts of the Union. 

Both during her dramatic career and her career as a teacher, Mrs. Rowson kept her pen 
busy. Among the books which she wrote after her return to America, may be named two 
novels, The Trials of the Heart, and Reuben and Rachel ; Slaves in Algiers, an Opera; The 
French Patriot, a Comedy ; The Volunteers, a Farce founded on the Pennsylvania Whiskey 
Insurrection ; besides several school-books, poetical addresses, and songs. The song, Amer- 
ica, Commerce, and Freedom, was very popular. 

Mes. Merct Warren, 1728-1814, the wife of Mr. James Warren, and a sister of James 
Otis, was born at Barnstable, Mass. Like the rest of her family, she was a zealous patriot, 
and exercised her talents in satirizing the royalists. She wrote The Adulator, as now acted 
in Upper Servia; and The Group, a satirical tragedy of similar character; Poems, Dramatic 
and Miscellaneous ; History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revo- 
lution, 3 vols., Svo. 

St. George Tucker, 1752-1827, was born in Bermuda, West Indies, but waa educated in 
William and Mary College, Yirginia, and in 1778 was married to Mrs. Randolph, the mother 
of John Randolph of Roanoke. Judge Tucker gained distinction as a jurist, and published 
several essays on professional topics. He is known in general literature by the following 
short poem only : 

STANZAS. 

Days of my youth, ye have glided away ; 
Hairs of my youth, ye are frosted and gray ; 
Eyes of my youth, your keen sight is no more ; 
Cheeks of my youth, ye are furrowed all o'er ; 
Strength of my youth, all your vigor is gone ; 
Thoughts of my youth, your gay visions are flown. 

Days of my youth, I wish not your recall ; 
Hairs of my youth, I 'm content ye should fall ; 
Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen ; 
Cheeks of my youth, bathed in tears have you been ; 
Thoughts of my youth, ye have led me astray; 
Strength of my youth, why lament your decay ? 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 93 

Days of my age, ye will shortly be past ; 
Pains of my age, yet awhile ye can last ; 
Joys of my age, in true wisdom delight; 
Eyes of my age, be religion your light ; 
Thoughts of my age, dread ye not the cold sod ; 
Hopes of my age, be ye fixed on your God. 

James McClttrg, M. D., 1747-1825, was a native of Hampton, Virginia, and a fellow-stu- 
dent with JeflFerson at William and Mary. McClurg studied medicine in Edinburgh and 
Paris. Dr. McClurg attained great eminence in his profession. In addition to his scientific 
attainments, he was well versed in literature, and occasionally used his pen for the amuse- 
ment of the public. One of these productions. The Belles of Williamsburg, the joint pro- 
duction of Dr. McClurg and his friend Judge Tucker, had considerable notoriety. A few 
stanzas are quoted : 

THE BELLES OF WILLIAMSBURG. 

Myrtilla's beauties who can paint? 

The well-turned form, the glowing teint, 

May deck a common creature ; 
But who can make th' expressive soul 
With lively sense inform the whole, 

And light up every feature. 

At church Myrtilla lowly kneels, 
No passion but devotion feels. 

No smiles her looks environ; 
But let her thoughts to pleasure fly, 
The basilisk is in her eye, 

And on her tongue the Syren. 

More vivid beauty — fresher bloom, 
With teints from nature's richest loom 

In Sylvia's features glow ; 
Would she Myrtilla's arts apply. 
And catch the magic of her eye, 

They 'd rule the world below. 

See Laura, sprightly nymph, advance, 
Through all the mazes of the dance, 

With light fantastic toe; 
See laughter sparkle in her eyes — 
At her approach new joys arise, 

New fires writhin us glow. 

Such sweetness in her looks is seen, 
Such brilliant elegance of mien, 

So jauntie and so airy; 
Her image in our fancy reigns, 
All night she gallops through our yeins, 

Like Uttle Mab the fairy. 

Aspasia next, with kindred soul. 
Disdains the passions that control 



94 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Each gentle pleasing art; 
Her sportive wit, her frolic lays, 
And graceful form attract our praise, 

And steal away the heart. 

Jonathan Mitchel Sewall, 1748-180<5, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, and educated at 
Harvard. He published a volume of Poems, of considerable merit, but is chiefly linown by 
his patriotic song, entitled War and "Washington. It was written at the beginning of the 
war, and was sung by the army all over the country with great enthusiasm. He was the 
author of the couplet so much quoted, 

No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, 
But the whole boundless continent is yours. 

Elijah Fitch, 1745-1788, a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1765, and minister of the 
church in Hopkinton, Mass., published a long poem in five books, on The Beauties of Re- 
ligion, addressed to youth ; and another poem of less extent, but like character, called The 
Choice. 

Rev. Nathaniel Evans, 1742-1767, was born in Philadelphia, and educated in the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. He went to England in 1765 for ordination, and returned as a mis- 
sionary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. He was stationed in 
Gloucester County, New Jersey, and remained there until his death, in 1767. He published a 
volume entitled Poems on Several Occasions. The poems show fine literary taste. 

Benjamin Church, M. D., 1734-1776, was a native of Newport, Rhode Island, and a gradu- 
ate of Harvard, in the class of 1754. He studied medicine in England, and was married 
there. On returning to America, he established himself in his profession in Boston. Church 
had considerable poetical abilities. His first poem was written while a student at college, 
and was called The Choice. It was in smooth, inoffensive heroic couplets, written profess- 
edly in imitation of Pomfret's poem of the same name. In 1765, after the passage of the 
stamp act, he published a satire, called The Times ; in 1766, an elegy on Dr. Mayhew ; in 
1769, An Address to a Provincial Bashaw, by a Son of Liberty; in 1770, An Elegy on the 
Death of Rev. George Whitefield. In these more mature productions of his muse. Church 
displayed much poetical ability. His political satires, particularly, were vigorous and keen, 
and were on the side of liberty. But he was extravagant and irregular in his life, and being 
led by his necessities into treasonable practices, he was obliged in 1776 to leave for England. 
The vessel in which he sailed was never heard from. 

John Bartram, 1701-1777, was the father of American botany. He was bom at Marple, 
Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Having a taste for botany, he established a botanical gar- 
den, the first ever attempted in America, and devoted himself to his favorite pursuit with 
a degree of sagacity and a singleness of purpose that made his name famous in both conti- 
nents. He made no pretensions to literary skill, but his published observations show great 
shrewdness. 

William Bartuam, 1739-1823, son of John B., inherited the tastes of his father, and de- 
voted himself through life to his favorite pursuit. " Bartram"s Garden," begun by the father 
and continued by the son, became famous. It was on the west bank of the Schuylkill, a 
little below Philadelphia, near where the Gray's Ferry bridge now stands. Bartram never 
married. He spent five years in traversing the South Atlantic States, studying the natural 
history of the region, and in 1791 published his observations in an 8vo volume, with a map 
and plates. The title of his w'ork is Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, 
East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc., containing an Account of the Soil and 
Natural Productions of those Regions, together with Observations on the Manners of the 
Indians. "It is a delightful specimen of the enthusiasm with which the lover of nature, 
and particularly the botanist, surveys the beautiful and wonderful productions which are 



THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 95 

scattered over the face of the earth." Bartram made some other contribntions to scientific 
and to popular literature, but the work just named was his chief production. After return- 
ing from his Southern expedition, he lived in quiet seclusion at the old homestead, where 
he was often visited by scientific travellers. Dunlap, the painter and historian, gives the 
following sketch of Bartram's appearance, on the occasion of a visit of this kind, in 1797 : 

"Arrived at the botanist's garden, we approached an old man, who, with a rake in his 
hand, was breaking the clods of earth on a tulip bed. His hat was old, and flapped over 
his face; his coarse shirt was seen near his neck, as he wore no cravat or kerchief ; his 
waistcoat and breeches were both of leather, and his shoes were tied with leather strings. 
"We approached and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into conversation with 
the ease and politeness of nature's nobleman. His countenance was expressive of benignity 
and happiness. This was the botanist, traveller, and philosopher we had come to see. He 
pointed out many curious plants." 

EUAS BouDiNOT, 1740-1S21, a native of Philadelphia, but resident for the most part in New 
Jersey, espoused actively the cause of the Revolution. He was at one time President of the 
Congress, and was for ten years Director of the Mint. He was the first President of the 
American Bible Society, and a liberal benefactor of benevolent and literary institutions. He 
wrote some works which attracted vei-y general attention. The Second Advent of the 
Messiah; The Age of Revelation, a reply to Paine; The Star in the West, a work intended 
to prove that the American Indians are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. 

Rev. William Linn, 1752-1808, was a native of Pennsylvania, and a graduate of Princeton, 
of the class of 1772. He was a Presbyterian minister, and served as chaplain in the Ameri- 
can army. He enjoyed a high reputation as a pulpit orator. Besides numerous Sermons on 
special occasions, he published in 1791 a volume of Discourses on the Leading Personages of 
Scripture History, and in 1794 another, entitled The Signs of the Times. Of his special ser- 
mons, the one published in 1800, on the Death of Washington, is the most noted. An 
extract is given : 

WASHINGTON. 

" There was in him that assemblage of qualities which constitutes real greatness ; and these 
qualities were remarkably adapted to the conspicuous part which he was called to perform. 
He was not tinsel, but gold ; not a pebble, but a diamond ; not a meteor, but a sun. Were 
he compared with the sages and the heroes of antiquity, he would gain by the comparison, 
or rather, he would be found to be free from the blemishes, and to unite the excellencies of 
them all. Like Fabius, he was prudent; like Hannibal, he was unappalled by diflBculties; 
like Cyrus, he conciliated affection ; like Cimon, he was frugal ; like Philopemon, he was 
humble ; and like Pompey, he was successful. If we compare him with characters in the 
Sacred Records, he combined the exploits of Moses and of Joshua, not only by conducting us 
safely across the Red Sea, and through tl)e wilderness, but by bringing us into the promised 
land ; like David, he conquered an insulting Goliath, and rose to the highest honors from an 
humble station ; like Hezekiah, he ruled ; and like Josiah, at his death there is a mourning 
'as the mourning of Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddon.' " 

George R. Minot, 1758-1802, was a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, of the 
class of 1778. He studied law in the same oflBro with Fisher Ames, and became a Judge. 
He wrote two historical works which are held in high repute, A History of the Produce of 
Massachusetts Bay, from 1748 to 1765, and The Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786. 

Joseph Bellamy, D. D., 1719-1790, a learned and able theologian of the Edwards school, 
born in Connecticut and educated at Yale. His works have been published in 3 vols., 8vo. 
The principal arc The True Religion Delineated; The Nature and Glory of the Gospel ; Let- 
ters and Dialogues on Love to God, Faith iu Christ, and Assurance of a Title to Eternal 
Life. 




CHAPTER III. 

From isoo to isso. 

The famous taunt of the Edinburgli Review, " Who reads an 
American book ? " had its sting in the fact that in those days 
there was a real dearth of authorship iu the United States. 

The earlier colonial literature was already among the things of the past. 
The literary activity of the Kevolutionary period had subsided with the 
subsidence of the political ferment in which that special activity originated. 
After the achievement of Independence and the establishment of a national 
Government, the American people were too busy in the work of material 
progress to give much attention to literature and science. There were, in- 
deed, some honorable exceptions to this remark. But on the whole, the 
growth of the nation in this direction was by no means equal to its progress 
in other respects. 

The time since the year 1800 may be conveniently divided, so far as liter- 
ature is concerned, into three periods, the first ending in 1830, the second 
in 1850, and the last coming down to the present time. These periods con- 
stitute, accordingly, our Third, Fourth, and Fifth Chapters. 

Chapter Third, 1800-1830, represents the national literature in its incip- 
ient, formative condition, under the new order of things, and is compara- 
tively weak and meagre. 

Chapter Fourth, 1830-1850, is much more abundant in materials and 
strength. 

Chapter Fifth, 1850-1873, far exceeds all the preceding in the abundance 
and quality of its materials, and shows the nation to be, at length, in its in- 
tellectual activity, thoroughly self-reliant, and nearly, if not quite, abreast 
of its older transatlantic neighbors. 

The period constituting Chapter Third, though confessedly weak, would 

96 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 97 

appear stronger than it now does, were it not that many writers who ac- 
quired celebrity in that period continued their literary activity far on towards 
thfe middle of the century, and that some, who, like the veteran Bryant, 
were famous as far back as 1825, still live to add yearly to their laurels. 

Among the writers who gave lustre to the period now under considera- 
tion, but who, happily for us, were spared to swell the treasures of a later 
day, may be named Bryant, Halleck, Paulding, Verplanck, Irving, Ck)oper, 
Kennedy, Percival, Pierpont, John Howard Payne, Miss Leslie, Miss Sedg- 
wick, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Phelps, the veteran 
magazinist John Neal, and the eminent theologians. Dr. Samuel Miller and 
Dr. Archibald Alexander, all of whom had become writers of note before 
the year 1830. 

In some instances it has been difficult to determine to which of these periods a particular 
writer should be assigned. The rule which it has been intended to observe has been to con- 
sider a man as belonging to that period in which his literary productiveness has been great- 
est, and in which he may fairly be said to have culminated. 

The writers included in Chapter III. are divided into seven 
sections: 1. The Poets, beginning with Robert Treat Paine; 
2. Miscellaneous Prose Writers, beginning with Charles Brock- 
den Brown ; 3. Scientific Writers, beginning with Wilson the 
Ornithologist ; 4. Writers on Political Economy, beginning with 
Matthew Carey ; 5. Legal and Political Writers, beginning with 
Chancellor Kent ; 6. Writers of Biography and History, begin- 
ning with Chief- Justice Marshall ; 7. Theological Writers, begin- 
ning with Samuel Stanhope Smith. 

I. THE POETS. 

Robert Treat Paine, Jr. 

Robert Treat Paine, Jr., 1773-1811, was the author of several 
poems which had a temporary notoriety, but he is now almost exclusively 
known, so far as he is known at all, by a patriotic song, called Adams and 
Liberty. 

Mr. Paine was a son of the Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Robert Treat Paine, 
and was named originally Tliomas Paine. But on his own application^ his name was changed 
by the Legislature to that of his father. 

Paine was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, and was graduated at Harvard, in the class of 
1792. He began writing poetry early in life, and nearly all his college exercises were in 
verse. About the time of his graduation, the players made their first appearance in Boston. 
Theatrical life and people suited Paine's tastes, and most of his brief career after this was 
connected with the dramatic profession. He became fascinated with one of the actresses, 
and married her. He wrote theatrical criticisms and prologues, and engaged in variuua 
9 Q 



98 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

other literary projects, but became dissipated, and died prematurely, with a reputation for 
shining abilities, but without having achieved any permanent success. 

His two chief poems, after the patriotic song already named, were The Invention of Let- 
ters, and The Ruling Passion. 

After his death, Mr. Paine's poetry gradually declined in popular estimation. It was pro- 
nounced tawdry, stUted, and conventional, the poetry of books ami not of the heart. There 
has been, however, some reaction from this sweeping condemnation, and he is now generally 
allowed, by those familiar with the subject, to have possessed talents of a very high order. 



ADAMS AND LIBERTY. 

Te sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought 

For those rights, which unstained from your sires had descended. 
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought. 
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended; 
'Mid the reign of mild peace. 
May your nation increase, 
With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece ; 
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world, 

Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion, 
The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd. 
To increase the legitimate powers of the ocean, 
But should pirates invade, 
Though in thunder array'd, 
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. 

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood. 

And society's base threats with wide dissolution; 
May peace, like the dove who return'd from the flood, 
Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution. 
But though peace is our aim, 
Yet the boon we disclaim, 
If bought by our sovereignty, justice, or fame. 

'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms: 

Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision ; 
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms, 
We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a provision. 
While, with patriot pride. 
To our laws we 're allied. 
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide. 

Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak, 

Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished, 
But long ere our nation submits to the yoke, 

Not a tree shall be left on tlie field where it flourish'd. 
Should invasion impend. 
Every grove would descend 
From the hill-tops they shaded, our shores to defend. 



Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, 
Ita bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; 



PROM 1800 TO 1830. 99 

For, unmov'd, at its portal would Washington stand, 
And repulse, with his breast, the assaults of the thunder! 
His sword from the sleep 
Of its scabbard would leap, 
And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep. 

Let fame to the world sound America's voice ; 

No intrigues can her sons from their government sever; 
Her pride are her statesmen — their laws are her choice; 
And shall flourish till Liberty slumbers forever. 
Then unite heart and hand. 
Like Leonidas' band, 
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

Fessenden. 

Thomas Greex Fessenden, 1771-1837, gained much notoriety as a 
humorous and satirical writer, under the name of Christopher Caustic. 
His two chief poems were Terrible Tractoration, and The Country Lovere. 

Fessenden was a native of Walpole, New Hampshire, and a graduate of Dartmouth, of the 
class of 1796. He went to England in ISOl, to introduce some mechanical invention. The 
machine failed, and its inventor fell into want. To relieve himself from his pecuniary 
troubles, he made a literary venture which was as successful as his mechanical ones had 
been disastrous. A man by the name of Perkins was at that time making a great noise by 
employing galvanism in the cure of disease. He used for this purpose what he called 
"metallic tractors." Fessenden seized the occasion to write his best known poem. Its full 
title is: "Terrible Tractoration, a Poetical Petition against Galvanizing Trumpery and the 
Perkinistic Institution, in four Cantos, most respectfully addressed to the Royal College of 
Physicians, by Christopher Caustic, M. D., LL. D., A. S. S., Fellow of the Royal College of . 
Physicians, Aberdeen, and Member of no less than nineteen very learned Societies." The 
poem is written professedly in the interest of the faculty and against Perkins, but is in fact 
a satire upon the medical profession. The poem made a decided hit, and gained the author 
both money and fame. 

On returning to America, Fessenden engaged in several literary and political enterprises, 
with varying success, and finally settled down as a writer on agricultural subjects. He 
edited for some years the New England Farmer, the Horticultural Register, and the Silk 
Manual. Hawthorne gives the following picture of Fessenden near the close of his career : 

" In January, 1836, 1 became, and continued for a few months, an inmate of Mr. Fessen- 
den's family. It was my first acquaintance with him. His image is before my mind's eye 
at this moment ; slowly approaching me with a lamp in his hand, his hair gray, his face 
solemn and pale, his tall and portly figure bent with heavier infirmity than befitted his 
years. His dress — though he had improved in this particular since middle life — was 
marked by a truly scholastic negligence. He greeted me kindly, and with plain, old-fiish- 
ioned courtesy ; though I fancied that he somewhat regretted the interruption of his even- 
ing studies. After a few moments' talk, he invited me to accompany him to his study, and 
give my opinion on some passages of satirical verse, which were to be inserted in a new 
edition of ' Terrible Tractoration.' Years before I had liglited on an illustrated copy of 
this poem, bestrewn with venerable dust, in a corner of a college library ; and it seemed 
strange and whimsical that I should find it still in progress of composition, and be consulted 
about it by Doctor Caustic himself. While Mr. Fesseudeu read, I had leisure to glauce 



100 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

around at his study, which was very characteristic of the man and his occupations. The 
table, and great part of the floor, was covered with books and pamphlets on agricultural 
subjects, newspapers from all quarters, manuscript articles for the New England Farmer, 
and manuscript stanzas for 'Terrible Tractoration.' There was such a litter as always 
gathers around a literary man. It bespoke, at once, Mr. Fessenden's amiable temper and 
abstracted habits, that several members of the family, old and young, were sitting in the 
room, and engaged in conversation, apparently without giving him the least disturbance. 
A specimen of Doctor Caustic's inventive genius was seen in the ' Patent Steam and Hot- 
water Stove ' which heated the apartment, and kept up a pleasant singing sound, like that 
of a tea-kettle, — thereby making the fireside more cheerful. It appears to me, that, having 
no children of flesh and blood, Mr. Fessenden had contracted a fatherly fondness for this 
stove, as being his mental progeny ; and it must be owned that the stove well deserved his 
affection, and repaid it with much warmth." 

Joseph Hopkinson. 

Joseph Hopkinson, LL.D., 1770-1842, is known in literature by a 
single brief production only, the patriotic song of Hail Columbia. 

Hopkinson was a Philadelphian, was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, was a 
member of Congress, and, in 1828, was appointed United States District Judge. He deliv- 
ered and published several addresses before literary societies, but is now known almost 
exclusively by the popular song already named. He was a son of the Francis Hopkinson, 
of Revolutionary memory, who is described in the preceding chapter. 

John Blair Linn, 1777-1804, a native of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and an assistant 
minister to Dr. Ewing, in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, was the author of 
The Gallic Orphan, a drama, acted in New York; The Power of Genius, a Poem; Valerian, 
a Poem in blank verse ; and 2 volumes of Miscellania, prose and verse. 

Charles Pinckney Sumner, 1766-1839, the father of Charles Sumner, was born at Milton, 
Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1796. He studied law under Josiah 
Quincy, was appointed High-Sheriff of the County of Suffolk in 1825, and retained the ofiice 
until 1839. He published The Compass, a poetical performance; Eulogy on Washington ; 
Letters on Speculative Masonry, etc. 

Francis S. Key. 

Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, is, like Hopkinson, indebted for literary- 
celebrity to the composition of a single patriotic song. The Star-Spangled 
Banner. 

Mr. Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland, and educated at St. John's College, 
Annapolis. He practised law first in Fredericktown, and afterwards in "Washington, where 
he became District Attorney. After his death, his poems were collected by H. T. D. Johns 
and published in Baltimore. The only one of any celebrity is The Star-Spangled Banner, 
already named. It was composed in 1814, on the occasion of the bombardment of Fort 
McHenry, when the author was a prisoner in the hands of the attacking British. 

William Munford, 1775-1825, was a native of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and a grad- 
uate of William and Mary College. He studied law; was a member of the House of Dele- 
gates, 1797-1801; Senator, 1801-1805 ; Member of the Privy Council, 1805-1811 ; and Clerk 
of the House of Delegates, 1811-1825. Besides several volumes of Law Reports, he published 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 101 

a volume of Poems and Prose articles, containing versifications of Ossian, Homer, etc. His 
chief literary performance was a translation of the Iliad into blank verso. This work was 
reviewed at length by Felton in the North American Review, by C. A. Bristed in the Ameri- 
can "Whig Review, and by Frothingham in the Christian Examiner. It is by general con- 
sent an accurate and scholarly version, and is entitled to an honorable place in the long line 
of illustrious attempts to give to the world an English Homer. 

Washington Allston. 

"Washington Allston, 1779-1843, a native of South Carolina, is known chiefly as a painter. 
He wrote, however, with great ease and no little ability, both in prose and verse. His prin- 
cipal publications are The Sylphs of the Seasons and Other Poems, The Romance of Monaldi, 
and Lectures on Art. Mr. Allston was greatly distinguished also for his conversational 
powers. "His tongue wrought on his associates and acquaintances like an enchanter's 
spell, preventing them taking any note of time ; and the small hours would be close upon 
them before they had thought of retiring." A short passage is quoted from the romance 
of Monaldi. The scene is one in Avhich Landi, the father, is trying to persuade his daughter 
to marry a man whom she does not love : 

LOVE MATCHES. 

" My dear father," said Rosalie, " I would that I could reason on this subject, but — indeed 
I cannot." 

" Strange ! Tou hint not even an objection, and yet — Do you think I overrate him ? " 

" No ; he deserves all you say of him ; but yet — " 

" You would still reject him ? " 

Rosalie was silent. 

" Kyou esteem, you may certainly love ; nay, it will follow of course." 

"Did you always think so, sir? " 

" Perhaps not. When I was young, I was no doubt fanciful, like others." 

" And yet you did not marry until past thirty." 

« "Well, child?" 

" My mother died when I was too young to know her; but I have heard her character so 
often from yourself and others, that I have it now as fresh before me as if she had never 
been taken from us. "Was she not mild and gentle ? " 

" As the dew of heaven." 

"And her mind? " 

" The seat of every grace and virtue." 

" And her person too was beautiful ? " 

" Except yourself, I have not seen a creature so lovely." 

" And did she make you a good wife ? " 

Landi turned pale. "Rosalie — my child — why remind me, by these cruel questions, of a 
loss which the whole world cannot repair ? " 

"She was then all you wished; and yet I have heard that yours was a love match." 

" No more," cried Landi, averting his face. " You have conquered." 



Clement C. Moore. 

Clement C. Moore, LL. D., 1779-1863, son of the late Bishop Moore, was a native of New- 
York city and a graduate of Columbia College. lie was for a long time Professor of Oriental 
and Greek Literature in the Episcopal Theological Seminary, New York. Ho published a 
Hebrew and Greek Lexicon, a volume of Poems, and some other works ; but will long be 
gratefully remembered as the author of those sprightly lines : 

9* 



102 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. 

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house 

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse: 

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, 

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there ; 

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, 

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads: 

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, 

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap : 

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, 

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. 

Away to the window I flew like a flash, 

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. 

The moon, on the breast of the new fallen snow, 

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, 

When, what to my wandering eyes should appear, 

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, 

With a little old driver, so lively and quick, 

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. 

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, 

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: 

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer, and Vixen I 

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! 

To the top of the porch ! to the top of the wall ! 

Now dash away ! dash away ! dash away all ! " 

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, 

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky: 

So up to the housetop the coursers they flew. 

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. 

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof 

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof — 

As I drew in my head, and was turning around, 

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound ; 

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, 

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; 

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back. 

And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack. 

His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry 1 

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! 

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow. 

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; 

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth. 

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; 

He had a broad face and a little round belly, 

That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. 

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. 

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; 

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head. 

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; 

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work. 

And filled all the stockings ; then turned with a jerk, 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 103 

And laying his finger aside of his nose. 

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; 

lie sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle. 

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. 

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, 

^'■Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.^'' 

Richard Alsop, 1761-1815, was a native of Middletown, Connecticut. He studied for a 
■while at Yale, but did not graduate, preferring to devote himself to the study of languages. 
He was familiar not only with the Latin and Greek, but also with the French, Spanish, and 
Italian. In connection with Theodore Dwight, he published in Hartford, in 1791, a series 
of humorous papers called The Echo. These were clever travesties and exaggerations of 
current publications, — scientific twaddle, spread-eagle orations, pompous state-papers, — 
whatever seemed to offer a target for the shafts of ridicule. Citizen Genet's processions, 
Governor Hancock's messages, Jefferson's inaugurals are among the topics thus put into 
polished pentameters. Among the other works of Alsop were A Poem to the Memory of 
Washington, The Enchanted I^ake of the Fairy Morgana, The Charms of Fancy. 

Robert Dinsmoor. 

Egbert Dinsmoor, 1757-1836, commonly known as the "Rustic Bard," 

published in 1828 a volume called Incidental Poems. 

Dinsmoor belonged to one of the old Scotch-Irish Presbyterian families who settled the 
town of Londonderry, New Hampshire. His education wsis vtiry limited, and he continued 
to the last a sturdy country farmer. But he had drunk inspiration from Robert Burns, and 
had much of the same doric humor. Whittier, in his charming book. Old Portraits and 
Modern Sketches, has given a genial picture of Dinsmoor, in his old age. 

" The last time I saw him he was chafifering in the market-place of my native village 
(Haverhill), swapping potatoes, and onions, and pumpkins, for tea, coffee, molasses, and, if 
the truth be told, New England rum. Threescore years and ten " hung o'er his back," 
yet he stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoes of cowhide, like one accustomed to tread 
independently the soil of his own acres — his broad, honest face seamed by care and dark- 
ened by exposure to ' all the airts that blow,' and his white hair flowing in patriarchal 
glory beneath his felt hat. A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man, simple as a child, and 
betraying neither in look nor manner that he was accustomed to 

'Feed on thoughts which voluntarily make 
Harmonious numbers.' " 

Dinsmoor wrote sometimes in plain English, but more frequently in the Scottish dialect. 
The following is a favorable specimen of his style, and is remarkable as being written at the 
age of seventeen. The piece is called Skip's Last Advice, and is in commemoration of a 
fiavorite old dog " who had survived his fifteenth year." 

SKIPS LAST ADVICE. 
Tent weel! for 'tis Skip's last advice! 
He warns ye a' now to be wise ; 
Take heed, for he'll no tell you't twice, 

For now he 's gawin' 
To lea' the filthy fleas and lice, 

That us'd to gnaw 'im. 

After breakfast he lay down ; 
Quoth he, "I fear I shall die soon. 



104 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Because I canna sing my tune; 

I used to sing, 
Till a' the hills an' Tallies round 

Like bells wad ring. 

"Hear me a' sizes o' my kind, 
Baith young an' auld, keep this in mind. 
An' hearken to what I've design'd 

Now to advise ye: 
Be gold, an' they '11 be hard to find. 

That will despise ye. 

"Do a' you're able for your bluid, 
And forward a' your master's gujd — 
You ought to do 't since you 're allow'd 

To serve mankind ; 
The best that e'er on four foot stood. 
This law shall find. 

"Let gei»erati<Hi8 yet to breed. 
Keep mind o' this, when we are dead ! 
I'm gaun the gate alack wi' speed, 

0' a' the earth! 
Tfow! but they're simpletons indeed 

Wha live in mirth. 

"Don't yoo like those your guid time spend. 
But aye think on your latter end; 
If you 've done ill, try to amend. 

An' gi'e aye praise. 
An' thank the ane wha did you send 

Sae mony days. 

"I maun hae done, farewell, adieu ! 
Farewell to Master Billy too, 
I hae na breath to name enow ; 

D«ath'8 come to plunder — 
He's taken me for ane I trow, 

Sae I knock under." 



Levi Frisbie. 

Levi Frisbie, 1784-1822, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard, 
in the class of 1802. He was Latin Tutor in the College, then Professor of Latin, and from 
1817 to 1822 was Professor of Moral Philosophy. An octavo volume was published after his 
death, containing some of his poems and of his philosophical lectures. 

Samuel Woodworth. 

SAMTJEii WooDWORTH, 1785-1842, a poet of some note, is the author of 
the familiar lyric. The Old Oaken Bucket. 

Woodworth was born in Scituate, Massachusetts. Ho learned the trade of a printer, and 
was engaged at different times in a large number of periodicals, of one kind or another. He 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 105 

published, Beaats at Law, or Zoological Jurisprudence ; Quarter-Day, or the Horrors of the 
First of May ; and many short poems. One of his lyrics, already named, has been a general 
favorite, and is likely to live. 

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. 

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 

When fond recollection presents them to view; 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild wood, 

And every loved spot which my infancy knew; 
The wide spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, 

The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell ; 
The cot of my father, the dairy -house nigh it. 

And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well, 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well. 

That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; 

For often, at noon, when returned from the field, 
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, 

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. 
How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing, 

And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell ; 
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing. 

And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket arose from the well. 

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, 

As, pois'd on the curb, it inclined to my lips ! 
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 

Though fill'd with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 
And now, far removed from the loved situation, 

The tears of regret will intrusively swell. 
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation. 

And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well; 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket. 

The moss-covered bucket which hangs in his well. 

Robert Walx, Jr., 1797-1824, was a native and resident of Philadelphia, and a member 
of one of the oldest and most honored families of that city. He received a liberal education, 
but did not engage in professional life. He published, in 1819, The Hermit in Philadelphia, 
describing the various scenes and incidents of city life. His other publications are Ameri- 
can Bards, a satire ; Touches at the Times ; Life of Lafayette, etc. 

Hillhouse. 

James A. Hillhouse, 1789-1841, was a poet of national reputation, his 
best work being the drama of Hadad, published in 1825. 

Hillhouse was a native of New Haven, and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1808. He 
retired from commercial life in 1824, and passed the remainder of his life In elegant leisure 
at Sachem's Wood, near New Haven. He delivered several able orations, and published a 



106 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

number of poems that have been warmly commended. These are : The Judgment, aTision; 
Percy's Masque, a drama ; Hadad, a sacred drama, and one or two shorter pieces. The best 
of his orations, perhaps, is the Phi Beta Kappa discourse in 1826, On Some of the Consider- 
ations which should influence an Epic or a Tragic Writer in the Choice of an Era. Hill- 
house's poetry, although at one time ranked very high by Critics, is now but little read by 
the public. A collected edition of his works, in 2 vols., 8vo, was published in 1839. 

Richard Dabnet, 1786-1825, a scholar and a poet of rare excellence, was a native and resi- 
dent of Virginia, and belonging to an ancient family known in early times in England as 
Daubeney, and in France as D'Aubigne. Mr. Dabney was one of those who escaped with his 
life at the burning of the theatre in Richmond, in 1811, though he suffered severely, and 
died prematurely in consequence. He was specially noted for his elegant scholarship in 
Greek and Latin, also for his acquaintance with English and Italian literature. He pub- 
lished a volume of Poems, chiefly translations from the Greek of Eux'ipedes, Alcaeus, Tyr- 
tarus, and Sappho, from the Latin of Seneca and Martial, and from the Italian of Petrarch 
and others, which were marked with fine taste and accurate scholarship. 

John M. Harney. M. D., 1789-1825, was born in Sussex County, Delaware. In 1791, the 
family removed to Tennessee, and afterwards to Louisiana. He studied medicine, and set- 
tled at Bardstown, Kentucky. After practising for four years, he went abroad and travelled 
in Great Britain, France, and Spain, and receiving a naval appointment, spent several years 
in Buenos Ayres. On returning to the United States, he settled at Savannah, Georgia, but 
losing his health returned to Bardstown, and died there. He published Crystalina, a Fairy 
Tale, in six cantos, and left a number of poems in manuscript, some of which were published 
afterwards in magazines. 

Joseph Rodman Drake. 

Joseph Eodman Drake, 1795-1820, gave promise of the highest excel- 
lence as a poet. His early death caused profound regret. He is chiefly 
known as the author of The Culprit Fay, which is his largest poem, and 
The American Flag, which is the most popular. 

Drake was a native of New York. He was a poet almost from the cradle, and he began at 
a very early age to contribute to the periodicals. He and Fitz Green Halleck, under the 
name of Croaker & Co., wrote a number of witty sallies, which had much temporary celeb- 
rity. His poem. The American Flag, appeared originally as one of the Croaker articles. 
Drake's poetical abilities were of a high order, and had he lived the ordinary term of life, he 
would probably have produced some great work of art. He died at the age of twenty-five. 
Drake and Halleck were very intimate. " The Culprit Fay arose out of a conversation in 
the summer of 1819, in which Drake, De Kay, Cooper, and Halleck were speaking of the 
Scottish streams and their adaptation to the uses of poetry by their numerous romantic 
associations. Cooper and Halleck maintained that our own rivers furnished no such capa- 
bilities, while Drake, as usual, took the opposite side of the argument; and to make his 
position good, he produced in three days The Culprit Fay." — Duyckinck. The scene of the 
poem is laid in the Highlands of the Hudson, and all the myriad life of field and flood pecu- 
liar to that region is transformed by the magic wand of the poet's fancy into a sort of Mid- 
summer Night's Dream. 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 107 



THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
Only the first and last stanzas of this familiar piece are given. The last four linos 
were written by Halleck. 

When Freedom, from her mountain height, 

Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night, 

And set the stars of glory there ! 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light ; 
Then, from his mansion in the sun, 
She called her eagle bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land ! 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 

By angel hands to valour given; 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven ! 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe that falls before us — 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet. 

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us? 

The friendship between Halleck and Drake, was of the most beautiful and tender kind. 
Halleck's tribute to the memory of his friend has become classical. 

ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell, when thou wert dying, 

From eyes unused to weep. 
And long where thou art lying, 

Will tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts, whose truth was proven, 

Like thine, are laid in earth. 
There should a wreath be woven 

To tell the world their worth. 

And I, who woke each morrow 

To clasp thy hand in mine. 
Who shared thy joy and sorrow. 

Whose weal and woe were mine — 

It should be mine to braid it 

Around thy faded brow. 
But I 've in vain essayed it, 

And feel I cannot now. 



I 



108 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Rev. Carlos Wilcox, 1794-1827, was born at Newport, New Hampshire. He was grad- 
uated at Middlebury College, and afterwards studied theology at Andover. He had several 
pastoral charges in Connecticut, but had frequent interruptions in his ministry, as in his 
studies, on account of ill health. He contemplated an extended Poem in five books, on The 
Age of Benevolence. He published the First Book during his life. After his death, his 
Remains were published, containing The Age of Benevolence (the First Book and portions 
of the second, third, and fourth), and The Religion of Taste, also incomplete. "The poems 
of Wilcox abound in passages of rural description of remarkable accuracy. The greater 
portion is, however, occupied with reflections on the power and beneficence of the Deity 
in the constitution of the material universe and the human mind. His verse always 
maintains correctness and dignity of expression, and often rises to passages of sublimity." 
— Duyckinck. 

John G. C. Brainard, 1796-1828, was a poet of some note in the last generation. A 
volume of his poems, with a biographical memoir, was edited in 1832 by his friend and 
brother poet, John G. Whittier. Brainard was a native of Connecticut, a graduate of Yale, 
and a lawyer by profession. 

Grenville Mellen, LL.D., 1799-1841, was born at Biddeford, Maine. He was graduated 
at Cambridge ; studied law ; practised in North Yarmouth from 1823 to 1828 ; after that 
spent five years in Boston ; then removed to New York, and resided there the rest of his 
life. He was devoted to literary pursuits, wrote much for the periodicals, and was consid- 
ered at the time a poet of high order. Time has gradually reversed the verdict, and even 
now, after the lapse of only thirty years, he is almost unknown. The following are the 
titles of some of his works : Our Chronicle of Twenty -six, a satire ; Glad Tales and Sad Tales, 
a collection of prose pieces ; The Martyr's Triumph and Other Poems ; The Rest of Empire, 
etc. " As a poet he enjoyed a higher reputation in his lifetime than his works will preserve. 
They are without vigor of thought or language, and are often dreamy, mystic, and unintel- 
ligible. In his writings there is no evidence of creative genius ; no original, clear, mainly 
thought ; no spirited and natural descriptions of life and nature ; no humor, no pathos, no 
passion ; nothing that appeals to the common sympathies of mankind." — Griswold. 



Robert C. Sands. 

KoBERT C. Sands, 1799-1832, was a writer of great promise, whose early 
death was universally regretted. He wrote, conjointly with his friend 
Eastburn, a poem of some celebrity, called Yamoyden. 

Sands was a native of the city of New York, and a graduate of Columbia College, of the 
class of 1815. He was one of a literary coterie which flourished in New York in the early 
part of the century, and which included in its membership Bryant, Paulding, Verplanck, 
Irving, Hal leek, Eastburn, and others. Eastburn and Sands both died early. They were 
young men of great literary promise. They wrote conjointly a poem called Yamoyden, 
which made some noise at the time. Sands was a lawyer by profession, and was gaining a 
good degree of professional success ; but his talents and taste were so decidedly literary that 
he gradually abandoned the law and gave himself up entirely to literature. He wrote for, 
or edited, several magazines, and for the last few years of his life was editor of The Com- 
mercial Advertiser. He had a special fancy for literary copartnerships, and several of his 
publications were made in this way. Sands, Verplanck, and Bryant wrote in this way The 
Talisman, a sort of illustrated annual, 3 vols. The same party, with the addition of Leggett 
and Miss Sedgwick, wrote Tales of Glauber Spa, 2 vols. Sands wrote also A Life of John 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 109 

Paul Jones. He died at the age of thirty-three, just as he was rising from metropolitan 
into national fame. From the versatility of his talents and his great mental activity, there 
is little doubt but that, had his life been spared, he would have filled a large space in Amer- 
ican literature. 

Rev. James Wallis E.^^stburn, 1797-1819, was a college friend and intimate literary asso- 
ciate of Robert C. Sands, and the two poets were writing conjointly the poem of Yamoyden, 
when an early death put an end to Mr. Eastburn's part of the labor. He was a natlTe of 
New York. 

MiCAH P. FuNT, 1807-1830, son of Rev. Timothy Flint, was born in Lurenberg, Massachu- 
setts. The father going West as a missionary, the son received his education from his father 
as tutor, wherever, from time to time, the latter was stationed, St. Louis, New Orleans, New 
Madrid, and Alexandria. He published in 1826 a volume. The Hunter and Other Poems, 
and contributed a large amount of poetry to The Western Review, a monthly magazine 
begun by his father at Cincinnati in 1827. The father, who was a man of superior abilities 
and fine tastes, entertained high hopes in regard to Micah, which however were cut off by 
the early death of the latter. The following lines by the poet in regard to his youthful 
verses are worthy of quotation, as showing an experience very common among authors in 
regard to their first ventures : 

I was permitted, in my youthful folly, 
To write, and send a book forth, once myself; 

And now it makes me feel right melancholy, 
Whene'er by chance I see it on a shelf: 

Not that I think the book was common trash, 

But that it cost some hundred dollars cash. 

John Attqustus Stone, 1801-1834, was born at Concord, Massachusetts. He drowned 
himself in a fit of temporary insanity, in the Schuylkill River, at Philadelphia. He was a 
dramatist of good promise. His chief play was Metamora, written for Edwin Forrest. He 
wrote two other plays for Forrest, The Ancient Briton, and Fauntleroy. Forrest paid him 
$500 for Metamora, and $1000 for The Ancient Briton. Stone wrote also La Rogue, the 
Regicide ; The Demoniac ; Tancred, and some other pieces. 

James Gordon Brooks, 1801-1841, and Mrs. Mart E. Brooks, (originally Miss Aiken, and 
married to Mr. Brooks in 1828,) were both poets. He wrote under the name of Florio ; she, 
under that of Noma. They published, in 1829, a volume with the title. The Rivals of Este 
and Other Poems, by James G. and Mary E. Brooks. Mrs. Brooks's contributions to the 
volume were considered the most valuable. " The poems of Mr. Brooks are spirited and 
smoothly versified, but diffuse and carelessly written. lie was imaginative, and composed 
with remarkable ease and rapidity ; but was too indifferent in regard to his reputation ever 
to rewrite or revise his productions." — Griswold. 

Mrs. Brooks — Maria del Oeeidente. 

Mrs. Maria Brooks, 1795-1845, surnamed by Southey Maria del Oeei- 
dente (Maria of the West), had a somewhat romantic history, and was re- 
garded for a time as a star of the first magnitude in the poetic firmament. 
Her chief work was an imaginative poem, founded on Oriental tradition, 
and called Zophiel. 
10 



110 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Brooks was originally a Miss Gowen, a lady of Welsh descent, born in Massachusetts. 
On the bankruptcy and death of Miss Gowen's father, her education was completed by Mr. 
Brooks, a merchant of Boston, who afterwards married her. lie too becoming embarrassed and 
dying, she was again reduced from opulence to poverty, and her first poems were written as a 
solace to herself! A rich uncle in Cuba invited her to live with him, and on dying left her his 
estate in that island. With ample means, she spent the remainder of her days in various places, 
— the United States, England, Europe, and Cuba. She died in Cuba. WhUe in England, she 
was the guest of Southey, who was a great admirer of her genius, and gave her the name of 
Maria del Occidente, by which she is often known. He superintended an English edition 
of her principal poem, Zophiel, and said, " America has never produced any poem to be 
compared with it;" and in '-The Doctor," he calls her " The most impassioned and most 
imaginative of all poetesses." The London Quarterly Review says, in regard to this eulogy : 
" Without taking into account quaedam ardentiora [certain rather over-warm passages] scat- 
tered here and there throughout her singular poem, there is undoubtedly ground for the 
first clause, and, with the substitution of ' fanciful ' for ' imaginative,' for the whole of the 
eulogy. It is altogether an extraordinary performance." Charles Lamb, speaking of this 
poem, writes : " He [Southey] says it is by some Yankee woman ; as if there ever had been 
a woman capable of anything so great ! " Mr. Griswold also goes into a very elaborate 
eulogy of Mrs. Brooks, putting her at the head of all those whose intellectual gifts have 
thrown lustre upon her sex. A much more sober judgment is that given by Mrs. Hale, in 
Woman's Record: "Mrs. Brooks has displayed much artistic skill^as well as poetic talent, 
cultivated taste, and literary research, in managing the materials of her poem. It has many 
beautiful passages; the descriptions are gorgeous and glowing; there is thrilling incident 
and burning passion ; but it lacks nature, simplicity, and true feeling. It excites the fancy, 
leaving the heart comparatively unmoved ; therefore the poem is deficient in that kind of 
interest which insures popularity : though praised by critics, it will never be read by the 
people." 

The title of this, her chief poem, is Zophiel, the Bride of Seven ; the plot is taken from 
the story of Tobit, in the Apocrypha, where the heroine is married successively to seven 
husbands, who all die on entering the bridal chamber, each being killed by Asmodeus, an 
evil spirit. Mrs. Brooks published also Judith, Esther, and Other Poems ; and Idomea, or 
the Vale of Yumari, which was in effect an autobiography. 

Lueretia and Margaret Davidson. 

LucKETiA Maria Davidson, 1808-1825, and Maroaket Miller 
Davidson, 1823-1838, sisters, are the most remarkable instances of preco- 
cious intellectual development that American literature presents, and are 
quite equal in that respect to Chatterton and Kirke White. 

Lueretia and Margaret Davidson were bom at Plattsburg, New York, daughters of a phy- 
sician of that place. 

Lueretia, when only six years old, had composed a number of poetical pieces, which were 
found secreted in a closet. The first of her poems that has been preserved was written at the 
age of nine. Several are found in her published works written at eleven. Before the age of 
twelve, she had read most of Shakespeare, Goldsmith, and other standard poets. At the age 
of sixteen, through the kindness of a benevolent gentleman, she was placed in the Seminary 
of Mrs Willard, at Troy. 

" She at once surprised us by the brilliancy and pathos of her compositions ; she evinced a 
most exquisite sense of the beautiful in the productions of her pencil ; always giving to what- 
ever she attempted to copy certain peculiar and original touches which marked the liveliness 
of her conceptions and the power of her genius to embody those conceptions. But from studies " 



FBOM 1800 TO 1830. Ill 

which required calm and steady investigation, efforts of memory, judgment, and consecutive 
thinking, her mind seemed to shrink. She had no confidence in herself, and appeared to 
regard with dismay any requisitions of this nature." — Mrs. Emma Willard. 

Lucretia's health soon failed, and she died not quite seventeen years old. Besides one 
hundred and forty pieces which had been destroyed before her death, she left two hundred 
and seventy-eight pieces, among them five poems of several cantos each, a number of ro- 
mances, and a tragedy. A volume, entitled Amir Khan and Otlier Poems, being a collection 
of her pieces, with a Memoir, was published in 1829, by Mr. S. F. B. Morse. It attracted 
general attention, not only in this country, but in England, where it was reviewed with 
high commendation by Southey in the London Quarterly. 

Margaret, who was about two j'ears old at the time of Lucretia's death, not only had the 
precocious imaginative character of the elder sister, but growing up in the atmosphere of 
wondering admiration which surrounded the memory of Lucretia, seemed early to have im- 
bibed the idea that a like career awaited herself. " When only three years old, she would 
sit on a cushion at her mother's feet, listening to anecdotes of her sister's life, and details of 
the events which preceded her death ; and would often exclaim, while her face beamed with 
mingled emotions, 'Oh, I will try to fill her place — teach me to be like her.'" At the age 
of six, she found delight in reading Milton, Cowper, Thomson, and Scott ; "her language 
assumed an elevated tone, and her mind seemed filled with poetic imagery, blended with 
religious thought." She died even younger than her sister, being at her death but fifteen 
years and eight months old. She left many things, both prose and verse, which were 
deemed worthy of publication, and which excited great interest. The largest was a poem 
called Leonore. 

Memoirs of these interesting young women were written by Miss Sedgwick and by Wash- 
ington Irving. 

A volume of selections from the writings, chiefly poetical, of Mrs. Margaret M. Da\idson, 
the mother, was published with a preface by Miss Sedgwick. " Mrs. Davidson has some 
command of language, and a knowledge of versification, . . . but her writings are interest- 
ing only as indexes to the early culture of her daughters." — Griswold. 



II. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE AA7RITERS. 

Charles Brockden Brown. 

Charles Brockden Brown, 1771-1810, was a novelist of good repute, 
and was the first American of any considerable note who made literature a 
profession. Two of his novels, Arthur Mervyn and Edgar Huntley, have 
taken a place in Bentley's Library of Standard Romance. 

Brown was a native of Philadelphia, and a descendant from those who came over in the 
same ship with William Penn. His works, as a novelist, though celebrated in their day, 
were not of the highest order of fictitious writing. His forte was not in the delineation of 
character, or of actual life, but in creating scenes of thrilling and even horrible interest. 
In this he had undoubtedly great powers of invention. His novels are no longer read to any 
extent, and he himself is nearly forgotten, except among those curious in literary history. 
The following are the names of his novels: Wielaud, or the Transformation; Oruiond; Arthur 
Mervyn; Edgar Huntley; Clara Howard; Jane Talbot; Sky-Walk, or the Man Unknown to 
himself. Mr. Brown made several attempts towards establishing a literary magazine, but 
did not succeed. This was not from want of the literary ability needed for such an enter- 
prise, for he seems to have had special fitness for such work, but there was at that time no 
adequate demand in America for a literary magazine. 



112 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mr. Browu wrote several political pamphlets, which were well received. 

He was eye-witness to the terrible scenes of the yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793, and 
afterwards in New York, in 1798, at which time he was a resident in that city. These hor- 
rors found expression in one of his novels, Arthur Mervyn, where the condition of Philadel- 
phia in the time of the yellow fever is described with a vividness equal to De Foe's descrip- 
tion of London in the time of the Great Plague. 

Joseph Dennie, 1768-1812, is associated with the early beginnings of a native literature 
in America, after the war of Independence. He was a native of Boston, and a graduate of 
Harvard. He studied law, but having no taste for the profession, addicted himself to liter- 
ature. He published for some time, in Boston, The Tatler, and then, in New Hampshire. 
The Farmer's Museum, but finally settled in Philadelphia, where he established The Port- 
folio, and enjoyed a great reputation as an elegant writer. " It was natural to overrate him, 
as in his time we had very few writers with whom he could be compared. For several years 
after the death of Brockden Brown, I believe he [Dennie] was the only man in the counti-y 
who made literature a profession." — Griswold. 



Robert Walsh. 

Egbert Walsh, LL. D., 1784-1859, after Brown and Dennie, was for a 
long time the chief representative of Philadelphia in the literary world. 
Although the author of no great work, he was eminently a man of letters, 
and he did much towards making Philadelphia a leading literary centre. 

Mr. Walsh was born in Baltimore, and educated at St. Mary's College in that city, and at 
the Jesuit College in Georgetown. After residing for several years in Europe, he settled in 
Philadelphia, at the age of twenty-four, and was admitted to the bar, but did not practise. 
His tastes and habits were all literary, and he gave himself at once to the life of a journalist 
and a man of letters. He began his literary career as a writer for Dennie's Portfolio. 

In 1809 he published A Letter on the Genius and Disposition of the French Government, 
commenting severely on the measures of Napoleon. The work was received with favor not 
only in America, but in England, where it passed through four editions and was heartily 
endorsed in an article in the Edinburgh Review. In 1811, he began The American Review, 
the first Quarterly ever attempted in the United States. It survived only two years, nearly 
all the articles being written by the editor. In 1813, he published Correspondence with 
Robert Goodloe Harper respecting Russia, and An Essay on the Future State of Europe. In 
1817, he became editor of The American Register, a statistical publication which lasted only 
two years. In 1818, he published, in Delaplaine's Repository, A Memoir of Benjamin 
Franklin. 

In 1818 appeared Mr. Walsh's largest work, An Appeal from the Judgments of Great 
Britain respecting the United States. It was an 8vo of 512 closely printed pages. The essay 
was occasioned by the continued and systematic calumnies and disparagements of the Brit- 
ish journals, and particularly of the great Quarterly Reviews of both political parties, the 
Edinburgh and the Loudon Quarterly, in regard to the American Government and people. 
Mr. Walsh took up the subject in a dignified and calm, but energetic manner, and brought 
such an array of facts and reasoning to bear upon it as to produce a marked change of tone 
in the British manner of treatment of American topics. 

In 1821, Mr. Walsh began the publication of the National Gazette, which he continued to 
edit with great ability for fifteen years, and to which he gave more of a literary character 
than had before been given to daily newspapers. In 1827 he resuscitated The American 
Review, and continued it for ten years. 

In 1837, Mr. Walsh retired from the Gazette, and published at the same time Didactics, 2 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 113 

vols., consisting of editorials from the paper. From 1837 to the time of his death, he lived 
in France, being for a part of the time United States consul there, and corresponding on 
European affairs for the National Intelligencer and the New York Journal of Commerce. 

Although Mr. Walsh survived to so recent a date, yet, his chief literary works having been 
written in the early part of the century, he is considered as belonging properly to the pres- 
ent chapter. 

William Dtjaxe, 1760-1835, was born near Lake Champlain, New York, and was bred to 
the trade of a printer. He passed some years in India and England, when he returned to 
the United States and settled in Philadelphia, where he published for many years a political 
paper. The Aurora, which exerted great influence. He was a man of marked character and 
talents. Besides The Aurora, he published A Tisit to Colombia ; An Epitome of the Arts 
and Sciences ; The Mississippi Question ; A Military Dictionary, etc. 

Mrs. Sarah Hall, 1761-1830, was a native of Philadelphia, and a daughter of the Rev. 
John Ewing, D.D., Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. She was married in 17S2 to 
Mr. John Hall, a wealthy planter of Maryland. After a residence of eight years in Mary- 
land, she returned to Philadelphia, and continued to reside there the rest of her life. She 
early imbibed a keen relish for polite literature, and devoted much time to its pursuit. 
When the Portfolio was established by Mr. Dennie, in 1810, Mrs. Hall was one of the liter- 
ary circle that gathered round it and gave it celebrity. Elegant literature was then more 
cultivated in Philadelphia than in any other city of the Union, and to write for the Port- 
folio was no small honor. The magazine afterwards came into the hands of her son, Mr. 
John E. Ii»ll, who conducted it for ten years. During that time, she was the leading con- 
tributor. In addition to her essays in the Portfolio, she prepared a work for religious in- 
struction, called Conversations on the Bible, which was received with great favor. 

Philip H. Nicklin, 1786-1842, a native of Philadelphia, and a graduate of Princeton, and 
widely known as a bookseller, gave considerable attention in his later years to literary pur- 
suits. He wrote Letters Descriptive of the Tirginia Springs, by Peregrine Prolix ; A Pleas- 
ant Peregrination through the Prettiest Parts of Pennsylvania by Peregrine Prolix (!) ; Re- 
marks on Literary Property; Papers on Free Trade, etc. 

William Wirt. 

Wllliam Wirt, LL.D., 1772-1834, though chiefly distinguished for his 
legal and forensic abilities, has an honored place in literature by his British 
Spy and his Life of Patrick Henry. 

Mr. Wirt was born at Bladensburg, Maryland, and lost both his parents (one Swiss, and 
the other German) before he was eight years old. Through the kindness of friends and his 
own exertions, however, he managed to get an education, and was admitted to the bar in 
1792. He practised in various parts of Virginia, chiefly at Richmond, but won his first real 
distinction in the famous trial of Aaron Burr for high treason, at Richmond, in 1807. His 
forensic ability and his eloquence, on that occasion, gave him at once a national reputation. 
He was Attorney-General of the United States during three successive Presidential terms, 
1817-1828. After retiring from the ofiice of Attorney-General, in 1828, he removed to Balti- 
more, where he resided for the remainder of his life, practising in the courts of that city, 
and in the Supreme Court at Washington. 

Few American statesmen of equal standing have shown such decided marks of refined and 
elegant culture as Mr. Wirt, and had he given himself to a life of letters, he would have won 
great distinction as a writer. His publications were. Letters of the British Spy, published 
originally in a Richmond paper, and purporting to be written by an Englishman travelling 

10* H 



114 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

through Virgiuia and describing what he saw; The Rainbow, a series of essays published 
originally ia the Richmond Inquirer; The Arguments in the Trial of Burr; The Old Bach- 
elor, a collection of essays ; The Life of Patrick Henry. Mr. Wirt published also numerous 
Addresses on public occasions. One of these, delivered before Rutgers College, New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey, was celebrated for its eloquence. Memoirs of Wirt, 2 vols., 8vo, were 
written by John P. Kennedy. 

The following extract is from The British Spy : 

THE BLIND PREACHER. 

It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught 
by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old, wooden house in the forest, not far from the 
roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through those States, I 
had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worsbip. 

Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I 
must confess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness, was not the least of 
my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall 
and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled 
hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments 
ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. 

The first emotions that touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. 
But how soon were all my feelings changed I The lips of Plato were never more worthy of 
a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! It wa3 a day of the ad- 
ministration of the Sacrament ; and his subject was, of course, the passion of our Saviour. 
I have heard the subject handled a thousand times : I had thought it exhausted long ago. 
Little did I suppose that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose 
eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever be- 
fore witnessed. 

As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, 
a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and 
my whole frame shiver. 

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour ; his trial before Pilate ; his 
ascent up Calvary ; his crucifixion ; and his death. I knew the whole history ; but never 
until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored ! It was all 
new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was 
so deliberate that his voice trembled on every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly 
trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had the force of description, that the original 
scene appeared to be at that moment acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of 
the Jews ; the staring, frightful distortions ^f malice and rage. We saw the buffet : my 
soul kindled with a flame of indignation ; and my hands were involuntarily and convul- 
sively clinched. 

But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Saviour ; 
when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven ; his voice breath- 
ing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon ou his enemies, "Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do," — the voice of the preacher, which had all along fal- 
tered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force 
of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepress- 
ible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled 
groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation. 

It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. 
Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of m}-^ own weakness, I began to be 
very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able 
to let his audience down from the height to which ho had wound them, without impairing 
the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness 



FKOM 1800 TO 1830. 116 

of the fall. But — no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had 
been rapid and enthusiastic. 

The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau: 
"Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God! " 

I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless 
you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis 
in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by 
laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the 
preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and 
Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses ; 
you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his 
voice of afifecting, trembling melody ; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthu- 
siasm to which the congregation were raised ; and then the few moments of portentous, 
deathlike silence which reigned throughout the house: the preacher removing his white 
handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears,) and 
slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, " Socrates 
died like a philosopher," — then, pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, 
clasped together, with warmth and energy, to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to 
heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice — "but Jesus Christ — like 
a God!" If it had indeed and in truth been an angel of light, the effect could scarcely 
have been more divine. 

William Crafts, 1787-1826, was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and for some 
time Editor of the Charleston Courier. He was prominent as a lawyer, and was at differ- 
ent times a member of the State Senate and House of Representatives. He wrote numer- 
ous Addresses and Speeches for public occasions, and also published some poems. 

William Elliott, 1788 , born at Beaufort, South Carolina, and a political writer of 

some note, wrote Fiesco, a tragedy ; Carolina Sports by Land and Water. 

William Dunlap. 

WiiiLiAM Dunlap, 1766-1839, acquired considerable note in his day by 
his various reminiscences and especially by his sketches of American the- 
atrical life. 

Dunlap was a native of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He was a theatre manager and a 
painter, and also wrote several entertaining books : Life of George Frederick Cooke ; The 
American Theatre ; History of the Arts of Design in the United States; Thirty Years Ago, 
a novel; History of New York; Life of Charles Brockden Brown, etc. 

Samuel Latham Mitchill, LL. D., 1764-1831, was for many years one of the notabilities in 
the scientific and literary circles of New York city. 

Dr. Mitchill was Professor of Chemistry, Natural History, and Philosophy in Columbia 
College. He helped to found the Lyceum of Natural History of New York. He took an 
active part in public and political affairs, and at different times represented the State at 
Washington, both in the House and the Senate. Among his publications are A Life of Tam- 
many, the Indian Chief; Observations on the Geology of America; Picture of New York ; 
Discourse before the New York Historical Society ; Description of Schooley's Mountain, 
New Jersey, Ac. 

Asa Greeve, M. D., 1837, a humorist of considerable descriptive power, who edited for 

a while The Evening Transcript, of New York. He published The Life and Adventures of 



116 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Dodimus Duckworth ; The Perils of Pearl Street ; The Travels of Ex-Barber Fribbleton ; 
A Yankee among the Nullifiers; A Glance at New York; The Debtors' Prison. 

The Brothers Irting. The brothers of Washington Irving were all engaged, more or less, 
in literary pursuits. — William Irvixg, 1766-1821, contributed the poetry and hints and 
sketches for some of the essays in Salmagundi. — Peter Irving, 1771-1838 ; edited the Morn- 
ing Chronicle. He projected, with his brother Washington, the sketches which the latter 
afterwards expanded into the Knickerbocker History ; also, published a novel called Gio- 
vanni Sbogarro. — John Treat Irving, 1778-1838; Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of 
New York, contributed to the Morning Chronicle, a Democratic paper started by his brother 
Peter Irving. John Irving made himself conspicuous by his poetical attacks upon his politi- 
cal opponents. His son, also named John Treat Irving, is known by his Sketches of the 
Pawnee Indians, and by two novels. The Attorney, and Harry Harson. 

Mrs. Tabitha Tennet, 1762-1837, acquired considerable celebrity by the publication of a 
humorous work, called Female Quixotism. In this amusing novel, a young woman, Dorcas 
Sheldon, acquires ridiculous notions of life by excessive reading of the Rosa-Matilda novels 
of the hist century, and the various follies into which this romantic sentimentalism leads 
her are hit off with much good-natured wit. 

Mrs. Tenney was the wife of Hon. Samuel Tenney, a surgeon in the old Continental army, 
and in 1800 a Member of Congress. She was a native and a life-long resident of Exeter, New 
Hampshire, and sprang on the father's side from the Gilmans, and on the mother's side 
from the Robinsons, which two families formed a large part of the early population of that 
old New England town. 

LucT Hooper, 1816-1841, was a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, where she lived 
until her 15th year. Her residence after that was in Brooklyn, New York. She began 
writing for the public at an early age, and besides numerous contributions to periodicals, 
published An Essay on Domestic Happiness; and Scenes from Real Life, a volume of prose 
sketches. She was a young writer of great promise, who had -yon high praise from such 
judges as Whittier, Tuckerman, and Dr. John W. Francis. 

RoTALl. Ttlee, 1756-1826, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, " had few equals, 
no superiors, among the wits of his day, — a more marked distinction, probably, than he 
possessed either at the bar or on the bench." He was born in Boston, and graduated at 
Harvard, in the class of 1776. He was the author of several Comedies : The Contract ; May 
Day, or New York in an Uproar ; The Georgia Spec, or Land in the Moon. He wrote also 
The Algerine Captive, or The Life and Adventures of Dr. Updike Underbill, Six Years a 
Prisoner among the Algerines, 2 vols., 8vo. 

Henry E. Dwight, 1796-1831, son of President Dwight, was a graduate of Yale, of the class of 
1815, and a resident of New Haven. He published Travels in the North of Germany in 1825-6, 
which was well received. 

George Wood, 1798 , was born in Newburj'port, Massachusetts, and studied law. He 

was appointed a clerk in the War Department at Washington, in 1819, and was a clerk in 
the Treasury Department from 1822 to 1845. He has published, Peter Schlemil in America; 
The Modern Pilgrims ; Marrying Too Late ; Future Life, or Scenes in Another World. 

George Watterston, , Librarian of Congress from 1825 to 1829, wrote Letters 

from Washington ; Course of Study Preparatory to the Bar or the Senate ; The Wanderer in 
Washington; The Lawyer, or Man as he ought not to be; Memoir on the Tobacco Plant; 
Gallery of American Patriots. 

George B. English, 1789-1828, was a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard. He 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 117 

was licensed to preach the gospel, but abandoned the profession and became a scoffing infi- 
del. He wrote a volume, Grounds of Christianity Examined, which was answered at length 
by Edward Everett, then a young man not quite twenty-one. English published afterwards 
Five Smooth Stones out of the Brook, intended as a reply to Everett; also, A Letter to Mr. 
Gary, and A Letter to Dr. Channing, in reply to their strictures on the same subject. His 
roving disposition showed itself in other things, besides his religious opinions. He entered 
the service of the Pasha of Egypt, and was reputed to have become a Mussulman. 

Timothy Flint. 

Key. Timothy Flint, 1780-1840, was -one of the pioneers of literature 
in the Western States. His Valley of the Mississippi was a work of de- 
cided literary merit, and by its attractive pages helped materially to people 
the region which it describes. 

Mr. Flint was a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Harvard. After preach- 
ing some time in his native State, he went, in 1815, as a missionary to the West, and 
spent ten years preaching and teaching in various parts of the Mississippi Valley. On 
returning to the East, he spent the remaining years of his life chiefly in literary pursuits. 
Besides some editorial labors on the Knickerbocker Magazine and the Western Monthly, 
he published: Recollections of Ten Years in the Valley of the Mississippi; A Condensed 
Geography and History of the Western States in the Mississippi Valley ; Francis Berrian, 
or The Mexican Patriot, purporting to be the autobiography of a New England adventurer, 
who acted a conspicuous part in the first Mexican Revolution and in the overthrow of Itur- 
bide; Indian War in the West; Memoir of Daniel Boone, the first settler of Kentucky; 
George Mason, the Young Backwoodsman; The Shoshonee Valley, a Romance; Arthur 
Clemming, a Novel ; The Old Bachelor Reclaimed, etc. 

Ca.pt. Johx C. Stmmes, 1788-1829, a native of New Jersey, made himself notorious in the 
early part of the century by promulgating a theory that the earth was hollow, open at the 
poles, and habitable within. He collected industriously a great many facts which favored 
his theory, published a volume on the subject, Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres, and 
travelled about the country lecturing on the subject, and trying to get up an expedition for 
testing the truth of his theory. Some of the facts now used to prove an open polar sea were 
fii'st observed by Capt. Symmes. 

III. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. 

Wilson the Ornithologist. 

Alexander Wilson, 1766-1813, was the founder of American Orni- 
thology, and his great work on the birds of the United States was not only 
the earliest, but in some respects the best that has been written on that 
subject. 

Wilson was born at Paisley, Scotland. He was a weaver by trade, but was by nature ofa 
restless disposition, and spent many years alternately weaving at the loom and travelling 
about peddling his wares. Before leaving Scotland, he published a volume of poonis, hu- 
morous, satirical, and serious; also, anonymously, the poem of Watty and Meg, of which 
one hundred thousand copies were sold. In 1794 he emigrated to America and settk-d in 
Philadelphia. After a brief trial at copperplate engraving, and at weaving and peddling, 
he turned his hand to school- keeping, first at Fraakford, then at Milestowu, near Pliiladel- 



118 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

phia, then in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and then again at Kingsessing, near Philadelphia. 
At Kingsessing, he made the acqiiaintance of William Bartram, the well-known naturalist. 
That association determined "Wilson's future career. Bartram encouraged Wilson's taste for 
natural history and gave him facilities for its pursuit. 

Wilson also fell in with Lav.son the engraver, who gave him lessons in drawing and 
etching, and who finally engraved the greater part of the drawings for the Ornithology. 

Wilson's most substantial patron, however, was William Bradford the publisher, who 
was then reprinting Rees's Cyclopedia, and who employed Wilson at a liberal salarj' to 
superintend the publication. This relieved him from the drudgery and confinement of the 
school-room, and gave him leisure and means for undertaking the great work on which his 
heart was now set. Henceforward, to the end of his life, all his leisure and all his available 
income were directed to this end. 

The first of the nine volumes contemplated was completed in 1808, the plates being 
engraved by Lawson and colored by liimself with assistance from Leslie the painter. The 
edition consisted of only two hundred copies, the subscription for the whole work being 
$120.a copy. Wilson courageously set off on a tramp through New England, and through 
the Southern States, collecting new specimens, and trying to get subscribers. The narra- 
tive of his difficulties and adventures is alternately amusing and appalling. But he never 
faltered, and before his death, in 1813, he saw the seventh volume completed. The eighth 
volume was nearly through the press when the author died. His friend and biographer, 
and the companion of many of his rambles, Mr. George Ord, superintended the printing of 
the remainder. Ord also wrote the letter-press descriptions for the ninth volume. The 
work made 9 vols, imperial 4to, with plates engraved and colored from original drawings 
taken from nature. The title was American Ornithologj-, or The Natural History of the 
Birds of the United States. 

Like Audubon, and like every great Ornithologist worthy of the name, Wilson was a poet 
as well as a man of science. He had an eye to see the beauty of the bird's life as well as of 
his plumage, and records the doings and the ways of his little friends with the fondness of 
a lover and the imagination of an artist. 

Wilson's intense love for his subject and the intrinsic beauty of the theme itself seem to 
have had a transforming and educating influence on the man. When writing on some 
favorite bird he is no longer the mere scientific naturalist, but rises into the region of poetic 
fancy. There is nothing in Irving or Goldsmith finer, as mere literary efi"orts, than some 
of Wilson's descriptions of the bu'ds of his acquaintance. 

THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

The plumage of the Mocking-bird, though none of the homeliest, has nothing gaudy or 
brilliant in it ; and, had he nothing else to recommend him, would scarcely entitle him to 
notice; but his figure is well proportioned, and even handsome. The ease, elegance, and 
rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays in 
listening and laying up lessons from every species of the feathered creation within his 
hearing, are really surprising, and maik the peculiarity of his genius. To these qualities 
we may add that of a voice full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modula- 
tion, from the clear, mellow tones of the Wood-Thrush to the savage scream of the Bald 
Eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully follows his originals. In force and sweetness 
of expression he greatly improves upon them. 

In his native groves, mounted upon the top of a tall bush or half-grown tree, in the dawn 
of dewy morning, while the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, his admi- 
rable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to 
which that of all the others seems a mere accompaniment. Neither is this strain altogether 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 119 

imitative. Ilis own native notes, -which are easily distinguishable by snch as are well 
acquainted with those of our various song birds, are bold and full, and varied seemingly 
beyond all limits. They consist of short expressions of two, three, or at the most five or six 
syllables; generally interspersed with imitations, and all of them uttered with great em- 
phasis and rapidity ; and continued, with undiminished ardor, for half an hour, or an hour 
at a time. 

His expanded wings and tail glistening with white, and the buoyant gayety of his action 
arresting the eye, as his song most irresistibly does the ear, he sweeps round with enthu- 
siastic ecstasy — he mounts and descends as his song swells or dies away ; and, as my friend 
Mr. Bartram has beautifully expressed it, "He bounds aloft with the celerity of an arrow, 
as if to recover his very soul, which expired in the last elevated strain." "While thus 
exerting himself, a bystander, destitute of sight, would suppose that the whole feathered 
tribes had assembled together, on a trial of skill, each striving to produce his utmost effect, 
so perfect are his imitations. He many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in 
search of birds that perhaps are not within miles of him; but whose notes he exactly imi- 
tates. Even birds themselves are frequently imposed upon by this admirable mimic, and 
are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates; or dive, with precipitation, into the depths 
of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to be the Sparrow Hawk. 

The Mocking-bird loses little of the power and energy of his song by confinement. In his 
domesticated state, when he commences his career of song, it is impossible to standby unin- 
terested. He whistles for the dog: Caesar starts up, wags his tail, and runs to meet his 
master. He squeaks out like a hurt chicken, and the hen hurries about with hanging 
wings and bristled feathers, clucking to protect her injured brood. He runs over the quiv- 
erings of the Canary and the clear whistle of the Tirginia Nightingale or Red-bird, with 
siTch superior execution and effect, that the mortified songsters feel their own inferiority, 
and become altogether silent; while he seems to triumph over their defeat by redoubling 
his exertions. 

His excessive fondness for variety, however, in the opinion of some, injures his song. His 
elevated imitations of the Brown Thrush are frequently interrupted by the crowing of cocks ; 
and the warbling of the Blue-bird, which he exquisitely manages, are mingled with the 
screaming of Swallows or the cackling of hens ; amidst the simple melody of the Robin we 
are suddenly surprised by the shrill reiterations of the "NVhippoorwill, while the notes of 
the Kildeer, Blue Jay, Martin, Baltimore, and twenty others, succeed, with such imposing 
reality, that we look round for the originals, and discover, with astonishment, that the sole 
performer in this singular concert is the admirable bird now before us. During this exhibi- 
tion of his powers, he spreads his wings, expands his tail, and throws himself around the 
cage in all the ecstasy of enthusiasm, seeming not only to sing, but to dance, keeping meas- 
ure of his o\vn music. Both in his native and his domesticated state, during the solemn still- 
ness of night, as soon as the moon rises in silent majesty, he begins his delightful solo ; and 
serenades us with a full display of his vocal powei's, making the whole neighborhood ring 
with his inimitable medley. 

THE BALD EAGLE. 

This distinguished bird, as he is the most beautiful of his tribe in this part of the world, 
and the adopted emblem of our country, is entitled to particular notice. He has been long 
known to naturalists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met with from a 
very high northern latitude, to the borders of the torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of 
the sea, and along the shores and cliffs of our lakes and largo rivers. Formed by nature for 
braving the severest cold ; feeding equally on.the produce of the sea and of the land ; pos- 
sessing powers of flight capable of outstripping even the tempests themselves; unawed by 
anything but man ; and from the ethereal heights to which he soars, looking abroad, at one 
glance, on an immeasurable expanse of forests, fields, lakes and ocean, deep below him ; ho 
appears indifferent to tUo little localities of change of seaaoua; as in a few miuuten he can 



120 AMERICAN LITEKATURE. 

pass from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher regions of the atmosphere, the 
abode of eternal cold; and thence descend at will to the torrid or arctic regions of the earth. 
He is, therefore, found at all seasons in the countries which he inhabits ; but prefers such 
places as have been mentioned above, from the great partiality he has for fish. 

In procuring these he displays, in a very singular manner, the genius and energy of his 
character, which is fierce, contemplative, daring and tyrannical ; attributes not e::erted but 
on particular occasions; but when put forth, overpowering all opposition. Elevated upon a 
high dead limb of some gigantic tree, that commands a wide \iew of the neighboring shore 
and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that 
pursue their busy avocations below ; the snow-white gulls slowly winnowing the air ; the 
busy Tringse coiu-sing along the sands ; trains of ducks streaming over the surface ; silent 
and watchful cranes, intent and wading ; clamorous crows, and all the winged multitudes 
that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. 

High over all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests all his attention. By his 
wide curvature of wing, and sudden suspension in air, he knows him to be the Fish-hawk, 
settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and balancing 
himself, with half-opened wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an 
arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of its wings reach- 
ing the ear as it disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around. At this moment 
the looks of the Eagle are all ardor ; and levelling his neck for flight, he sees the Fish-hawk 
emerge, struggling with his prey, and mounting into the air with screams of exultation. 
These are the signals for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, soon 
gains on the Fish-hawk; each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in 
these rencontres the most elegant and sublime aerial evolutions. The unincumbered Eagle 
rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when with a sudden 
scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops his fish ; the Eagle pois- 
ing himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends Uke a whirlwind, 
snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away 
to the woods. 

Audubon. 
John Jajies Audubon, 1780-1851, was a worthy successor of Wilson, 
in the walk of Ornithology. Audubon's work, The Birds of America, 
equalled Wilson's in the poetical beauty of the descriptions, and surpassed 
it in the splendor of the engraving and coloring. 

Audubon was a resident of Louisiana, of French descent, the son of an admiral in the 
French navy. He engaged at first in commercial pursuits, but finding himself strongly 
drawn towards the study of birds, he concluded to follow the bent of his mind, and gave him- 
self up entirely to his favorite pursuit, travelling in every direction in the collection of 
materials. 

After nearly half a lifetime spent in this manner, Audubon visited Europe to obtain sub- 
scribers to his great work, The Birds of America. He was everywhere received with ap- 
plause. The most distinguished men of the time, Brewster, Cuvier, Humboldt, Herschel, Sir 
"Walter Scott, Jeffrey, Wilson, and others of that stamp, shared a warm interest both in him 
and his work, and he proceeded at once with the publication. 

Wilson, of Blackwood's Magazine, said of him : " The hearts of all warmed towards 
Audubon, who were capable of conceiving the difliculties, danger, and sacrifices that must 
have been encountered, endured, and overcome, before genius could have embodied these, 
the glory of its innumerable triumphs. The man himself is just what you would expect 
from his production ; full of fine enthusiasm and intelligence, most interesting in his looks 
and manners, a perfect gentleman, and esteemed by all who know him for the simplicity and 
frankness of his nature. He is the greatest artist in his own walk that ever lived." 



FHOM 1800 TO 1830. 121 

The subscription price of the work was $1000. It coutained 448 plates of birds of the 
natural size, engraved from his original drawings and beautifully colored. The engravings 
filled 5 folio volumes, and the descriptions filled 5 volumes more, 8vo. 

Audubon published also, in connection with his sons, Quadrupeds of North America, in 3 
vols., folio, 150 plates, with 3 vols., 8vo, of descriptions. 

Audubon's work not only won for himself universal renown but crave to the study of 
oruithology a new impulse, under which it has since made prodigious advances. It is diffi- 
cult to say which is most fascinating, his pictures of the birds, which were manifestly drawn 
with a loving hand, or his d scriptiou of their habits and of his solitary rambles in studying 
them. 

THE RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 

The life which I have led has been in some respects a singular one. Think of a person, 
intent on such pursuits as mine have been, aroused at early dawn from his rude couch on 
the alder-fringed brook of some northern valley, or in the midst of some yet unexplored 
forest of the ^Yest, or perhaps on the soft and warm sands of the Florida shores, and lis- 
tening to the pleasing melodies of songsters innumerable saluting the magnificent orb, from 
whose radiant influence the creatures of many worlds receive life and light. Refreshed and 
reinvigorated b}' healthful rest, he starts upon his feet, gathers up his store of curiosities, 
buckles on his knapsack, shoulders his trusty firelock, says a kind word to his faithful dog, 
and recommences his pui-suit of zoological knowledge. Now the morning is spent, and a 
squirrel or a trout aflforJs him repast. Should the day be warm, he reposes for a time under 
the shade of some tree. The woodland choristers again burst forth into song, and he starts 
anew to wander wherever his fancy may direct him, or the object of his search may lead 
him in pursuit. When evening approaches, and the birds are seen betaking themselves to 
the retreats, he looks for some place of safety, erects his shed of green boughs, kindles his 
fire, prepares his meal, and as the widgeon or blue-winged teal, or perhaps the breast of a 
turkey or a steak of vension, sends its delicious perfumes abroad, he enters into his parch- 
ment-bound journal the remarkable incidents and facta that have occurred in the course of 
the day. Darkness has now drawn her sable curtain over the scene ; his repast is finished, 
and kneeling on the earth, he raises his soul to heaven, grateful for the protection that has 
been granted to him, and the sense of the divine presence in this solitary place. Then wish- 
ing a cordial good-night to all the dear friends at home, the American woodsman wraps 
himself up in his blanket, and closing his eyes, soon falls into the comfortable sleep which 
never fails him on such occasions. 

THE HUMMING-BIRD. 

Where is the person, who, on observing this glittering fragment of the rainbow, would 
not pause, admire, and instantly turn his mind with reverence towards the Almighty Crea- 
tor, the wonders of whose hand we at every step discover, and of whose sublime conceptions 
we everywhere observe the manifestations in his admirable system of creation? There 
breathes not such a person; so kindly have we all been blessed with that intuitive and 
noble feeling — admiration! 

No sooner has the returning sun again introduced the vernal season, and caused millions 
of plants to expand their leaves and blossoms to his genial beams, than the little humming- 
bird is seen advancing on fairy wings, carefully visiting every opening flower-cup, and, like 
a curious florist, removing from each the injurious insects that otherwise would ere long 
cause their beauteous petals to droop and decay. Poised in the air, it is observed peeping 
cautiously, and with sparkling eye, into their innermost recesses, whilst the ethereal mo- 
tions of his pinions, so rapid and so light, appear to fan and cool the flower, without injur- 
ing its fragile texture, and produce a delightful murmuring sound, well adapted for lulling 

the insects to repose 

11 



122 AMERICAN LITERATUBE. 

The prairies, the fields, the orchards and gardens, nay, the deepest shades of the forests, 
are all visited in their tnm, and everywhere the little bird meets with pleasure and vrith 
food. Its gorgeous throat in beauty and brilliancy baffles all competition. Now it glows 
with a fiery hue, and again it is changed to the deepest velvety black. The upper parts of 
its delicate body are of resplendent changing green ; and it throws itself through the air 
with a swiftness and vivacity hardly conceivable. It moves from one flower to another like 
a gleam of light, upwards, downwards, to the right and to the left. In this manner it 
searches the extreme northern portions of our country, following with great precaution the 
advances of the season, and retreats with equal care at the approach of autumn. 

Duponeeau. 

Petkr S. Duponceau, 1760-1844, of Philadelphia, gained for himself 
a European fame by his Memoir on the Indian Languages of North 
America. 

Mr. Duponeeau was a native of France. He came to the United States as aid to Baron 
Steuben, and rose to eminence in civil life. He entered the legal profession, and settled in 
Philadelphia, where he distinguished himself by his practice as a lawyer, and by his devo- 
tion to literary and philosophical pursuits. He became President of the American Phil- 
osophical Society, and a Corresponding Member of the French Institute. His Memoir on 
the Indian Languages gained him great applause, and a medal from the Institute of France. 
His latest work in the department of linguistics was A Dissertation on the Chinese System 
of Writing. He wrote numerous other learned essays. 

Noali ^A^ebster. 

Noah Webster, LL. D., 1758-1843, is known the world over by his 
Spelling-Book and his American Dictionary of the English Language. 

Mr. Webster was born at Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated at Yale, in the class of 
1778. He taught school and studied law, and in 1781 was admitted to practice. In 1783, he 
published his first work, called "Grammatical Institute of the English Language," the in- 
troductory portion of which became afterwards his well-known " Spelling-Bcok." In 1785, 
he travelled in the Southern States ; in 1787, he taught an academy in Philadelphia ; in 1788, 
he projected in New York the American Magazine, which failed; in 1789-93, he practised 
law at Hartford ; in 1793, he went again to New York and started another paper, advocating 
Washington's administration ; from 1798 to 1812, he lived in New Haven, engaged in phil- 
ological pursuits ; from 1812 to 1822, he bved at Amherst, continuing his studies, and engag- 
ing incidentally in the establishment of the College ; from 1822 to his death in 1813 ho 
resided in New Haven. 

Mr. Webster's early experience as a schoolmaster led no doubt to his making a Spelling- 
Book, and that in turn to the preparation of a Dictionary. His first essay in the latter work 
was a small affair, called " A Compendious Dictionary," published in 1806. By the prepara- 
tion of these works, however, his mind became fully set in that direction, and henceforth 
his life labor became that of writing a great, comprehensive work on this subject. Pending 
the completion of this, he issued a School Dictionary in 1817. 

Mr. Webster's great work was brought out in 1828, after a continuous labor of more than 
twenty years. It was published at first in 2 vols., 4to. Under the direction of Professor 
Goodrich (Dr. Webster's son-in-law), and of Dr. Noah Porter, now President of Yale, with 
the aid of a large number of fellow laborers, the work was amended and increased, from 
time to time, until the appearance, in 1864, of what is known as the Revised Webster. 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 123 

Dr. Webster's first publication, in 1783, contained the germ of a Grammar as well as of a 
Spelling-Book and a Dictionary, and he subsequently, at several different times, put forth a 
text-book on English Grammar. But his labors in this line did not succeed, and are now 
little known except as a matter of curious history. He published several essays also on the 
errors in Johnson's Dictionary, on the errors in the English translation of the Bible, and he 
attempted a revised version, but did not succeed in bringing the public over to his views. 
He wrote likewise a considerable number of pieces on political and moral subjects. 

The sale of Webster's Spelling-Book, notwithstanding the large number of competitors 
now in the market, is over a million of copies annually, and the entire sale is supposed to 
have been over fifty millions. The Dictionary, as finally revised, has also an enormous sale. 
It is published in a great variety of forms, from the Imperial Quarto, of 1840 pages and 
114,000 words, down to the small Primary and Pocket Dictionaries of 320 pages, 16mo. 

John Pickering, LL. D., 1772-1846, son of Colonel Timothy Pickering of Revolutionary 
memory, was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 
1796. Soon after graduating, he was Secretary of Legation to Portugal, and afterwards con- 
nected with the American Embassy in London. He practised law in Salem from 1801 to 
1829 ; after that date he resided in Boston and continued his practice there until his death. 
He was devoted through life to linguistic studies, and was elected to the chair of Hebrew, 
and then to that of Greek, in Harvard, but declined both positions. He published A Vocabu- 
lary of Words and Phrases which are supposed to be Peculiar to the United States; On the 
Adoption of a Uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of North America; Remarks 
on the Indian Languages of North America ; A Comprehensive Lexicon of the Greek Lan- 
guage, which was at the time of its appearance, 1826, the best work in English on the 
subject, and which even now has not been superseded by the subsequent labors in the same 
line. 

Frederick Percivai, Leverett, 1803-1836, was a native of Boston, and a distinguished 
teacher in that city. He compiled a Latin-English Lexicon, which is one of fhe best works 
extant in English on that subject, and he had in hand, at the time of his death, the prepa- 
ration of a similar Greek-English Lexicon. 

John D. Godman, 1794-1830, was a native of Annapolis, Maryland. He was at first a printer, 
then a sailor, but afterwards applied himself to the study of medicine, and rose to high dis- 
tinction in the profession. He was Professor of Anatomy, first in the Medical College at 
Cincinnati, then in Rutgers Medical College, New York. Obliged by failing health to give 
up his professorship, he retired to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he spent the closing 
yeara of his life. Besides some valuable contributions to medical science, of a strictly 
professional character, he published American Natural History, 3 vols. ; Rambles of a Natu- 
ralist; and Addresses on various occasions. He also wrote the articles in the Encyclo- 
psedia Americana to the end of the letter C. 



IV. WRITERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Matthew Carey, 1760-1839, was greatly distinguished in liis day, as a 
practical philanthropist and as a writer on questions of social and political 
economy. He was also at that time the leading bookseller in the United 
States. 

Mr. Carey was an Irishman by birth, but by his liberal publications he gave offence to 
the English Government and was obliged to leave the country. He came to the United 
States in 1783, and made his permanent home in Philadelphia. Besides the large book 



124 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

business which he founded, he published first the Pennsylvania Herald, and then the 
American Museum, the latter being a monthly magazine and continuing for thirteen vol- 
umes. He wrote also numerous pamphlets on the topics of the day, and always with 
marked effect on public opinion. Among these, were Essays on Political Economy, the 
subject to which his son Henry C.Carey has given so much attention. "He [Matthew 
Carey] has given more time, money, and labor to the public than any man I am acquainted 
with, and in truth he has founded in Philadelphia a school of public spirit." — John Sargeant. 
Among his bookselling enterprises, Mr. Carey, who was himself a Catholic, published, about 
1790, the first Catholic Bible issued in the United States, and kept it in the market several 
years. 

Tench Coxe, 1756-1824, was a Philadelphian, and a writer on political economy, com- 
merce, and kindred subjects. Works : Address on American Manufactures ; Inquiry into 
the Principles of a Commercial System for the United States ; View of the United States of 
America; Thoughts on Naval Powers, etc. 

William M. Gouge, 1796 , a native of Philadelphia, is the author of several works on 

banking and currency: A Short History of Paper Money in the United States; The Ex- 
pediency of Dispensing with Bank Agency and Bank Paper in the Fiscal Concerns of the 
United States ; History of the American Banking System, etc. 

CoNDY Raguet, LL. D., 1784-1842, a native and resident of Philadelphia, was a man of 
varied learning. He was a writer on trade, commerce, and banking, and advocated Free 
Trade principles. He published An Inquiry into the Present State of the Circulating 
Medium of the United States, 1815 ; The Principles of Free Trade ; Currency and Bank- 
ing, etc. 

Roberts Vaux, 1786-1836, was born, lived, and died, in Philadelphia. He was a member 
of the Societyof Friends, and took an active and leading part in almost every enterprise 
of a benevolent and philanthropic character in the city of Philadelphia. Institutions for 
the deaf, blind, and insane, reformatories for the vicious, associations for the relief of the 
poor, had in him a never-failing friend. More than all else, he took the lead in the efforts 
to establish a system of Public Schools for the city, and may justly be considered the 
founder of the system. His publications, consisting mostly of pamphlet Addresses, relate 
chiefly to the various benevolent enterprises with which he was connected : Letter on the 
Penitentiary System of Pennsylvania ; The Original and Successive Efforts to Improve the 
Discipline of the Prison at Philadelphia ; Annual Reports of the Controllers of the Public 
Schools, of which he was for many years President; Memoirs of Benjamin Lay, Ralph 
Sandiford, and Anthony Benezet, etc. 

Charles Wilson Peale, 1741-1827, widely known as a painter and as the founder of 
"Peale's Museum," was also a man of literary tastes, and wrote several works worthy of 
mention : Introduction to a Course of Lectures on Natural History ; The Preservation of 
Health ; An Essay to Promote Domestic Happiness; Ecouomj- in Fuel; An Essay on Build- 
ing Wooden Bridges, etc. Mr. Peale was a native of Maryland, and resided alternately in 
Philadelphia and London. 

Albert Gallatin. 

Albert Gallatin, 1761-1847, an eminent banker of New York, wrote 
on banking and currency, and other kindred topics. 

Mr. Gallatin was a native of Geneva, Switzerland. He came to America in 1780, and took 
an active and conspicuous part in the affairs of his adopted country. He was Secretary of 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 125 

the Treasury under Jefferson, and one of the leaders of the Republican (now Democratic) 
party. He was a warm advocate of internal improvements, and one of the originators of the 
Coast Survey. He was associated with Adams and Clay in negotiating the Treaty of Peace 
with Great Britain ; was minister to France from 1816 to 1823; and in 1826 was made minis- 
ter to Great Britain. On returning from these foreign missions he settled in New York, and 
was connected with the banking system of that citj'. Besides his financial and political 
studies, he gave much attention to ethnography, particularly to the languages and antiqui- 
ties of the Indian tribes. 

The following are Mr. Gallatin's principal publications : Considerations on the Currency 
and Banking System of the United States ; Synopsis of the Indian Tribes ; The Oregon Ques- 
tion ; Peace with Mexico, etc. 

Dr. Cooper. 

Thomas Cooper, M. D., LL. D., 1759-1840, of Columbia, South Caro- 
lina, wrote much on political economy and kindred topics. 

Dr. Cooper was an Englishman by birth, and a graduate of Oxford. He emigrated to the 
United States with Dr. Priestley in 1792, and settled in Pennsylvania. Governor McKean 
appointed him Judge. He became Professor of Chemistry in Dickinson College, Carlisle, 
then in the University of Pennsylvania, and finally in Columbia College, South Carolina, of 
which institution he became President. He was a man of great mental activity and of very 
pronounced opinions. He wrote a good deal on political subjects, and exerted a powerful 
influence in the State which he adopted as his permanent home. 

Some of his publications are the following : The Banki-upt Law of America compared with 
that of England ; An English Version of the Institutes of Justinian ; Lectures on Political 
Economy. The last years of his life were spent in revising the Statutes of South Carolina, 
10 vols. 

Alexaitber B. Johxsox, 1786 , was bom at Gosport, England, but settled in 1801 at 

Utica, New York, where he followed the occupation of banker and lawyer. He has writ- 
ten on banking and on other subjects : Inquiry into the Nature and Value of Capital ; A 
Treatise on Banking ; The Philosophy of Human Knowledge, or a Treatise on Language ; 
The Meaning of Words Analyzed into Words and Unverbal Things ; Religion in its Relations 
to the Present Life ; The Physiology of the Senses ; Sketches of the Literature of the United 
States ; An Encyclopedia of Instruction, on Apologues and Breviats, or Men and Manners. 



V. LEGAL AND POLITICAL WRITERS. 

Chancellor Kent. 

James Kent, LL. D., 1763-1847, the distinguished Chancellor of the 
State of New York, enriched the literature of his profession by his Com- 
mentaries upon American Law, — a work commended by the excellence of 
its style as well as by its legal acumen, and received as a text-book where- 
ever the subject itself is a matter of study. 

Chancellor Kent was a native of Putnam County, New York. Ho graduated at Yale, in 
the class of 1781. He commenced the practice of law in 1785 ; was Professor of Law in Col- 
umbia College, 1793-1798 ; was City Recorder ; Judge, and subsequently Chief Justice, of the 
Supreme Court of the State ; and Chancellor of the State from 1814 to 1823. Being then 
sixty years of age, he was, in consequence of the limitation clause of the State Constitution, 
11^ 



126 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

obliged to retire from his office, although in the prime of his intellectual and physical life. 
On retiring from the Chancellorship he reassumed the professoi'ship of law at Columbia Col- 
lege. 

The first edition of the Commentaries appeared 1826-1830. Since that time the work has 
passed through a large number of editions. His decisions in law and in equity are contained 
chiefly in the State reports of Caines and Johnson. 

Chancellor Kent is the most eminent personage in the annals of American jurispradence, 
— not excepting such men even as Marshall and Story. No one had so large a share as had 
Chancellor Kent in creating the American system of Equity. In the language of Judge 
Duer, " although when he (Kent) was appointed to the ofiice of Chancellor, a Court of Chan- 
cery existed, yet a Court of Equity, in the true sense and full significance of the term, was 
still to be created." Again, in the words of Judge Story, " It required such a mind, at once 
liberal, comprehensive, exact, and methodical, always reverencing authorities and bound by 
decisions, true to the spirit yet more to the letter, pursuing principles with a severe and 
scrupulous logic, yet blending with them the most persuasive equity, — it required such a 
man, with such a mind, to unfold the doctrines of Chancery in our country, and to settle 
them upon immovable foundations." 

Chancellor Kent has been called, in allusion to his Commentaries, the " American Black- 
stone." The comparison does the Englishman the greater honor, for Kent surpassed his 
predecessor in almost every feature that goes to constitute a jurist. Chancellor Kent was 
profoundly versed in Roman law, and from that knowledge derived his wonderful symmetry 
and breadth of culture, whereas not one in ten of the allusions to the Roman Law in Black- 
stone's Commentaries is respectably accurate. The style of the English jurist is inflated 
and conceited ; that of Kent is easy, natural, and vigorous. 

Kent's Commentaries upon American Law is the leading text-book of the present day, and 
has not only made its author famous both in England and on the Continent, but has also 
obtained universal recognition for the merits of the legal system which it unfolds. 

Judge Story. 

Joseph Story, 1779-1845, is considered as ranking next to Kent as a 
jurist. His great work on the Constitution of the United States contains, 
from the nature of its subject, much that is not strictly professional, and 
that brings it to some extent within the range of general literature. 

Judge Story was a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1798. 
After rising to eminence in his profession as a lawyer, and serving several terms as a 
member of the legislature of Massachusetts and of the National House of Representatives, 
he was appointed in 1811, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
This office he retained until his death. From 1829 he filled the additional office of Dane pro- 
fessor of law at Harvard. 

Judge Story's name is among the first that impress themselves upon the attention of the 
young American student of law, and ranks in importance second only to that of Chancellor 
Kent. For thirty-four years a prominent member of the highest tribunal in the land, the 
leading professor of the chief law-school, the author of the most widely read text-books, 
Story's record is indeed a glorious one in- the annals of his profession. 

The mere enumeration of his labors is instructive. According to his biography, carefully 
prepared by his son. Judge Story delivered 13 volumes of Circuit Court decisions, had a large 
share in 35 volumes of Supreme Court decisions, prepared 13 volumes of legal treatises, 
besides discourses, essays in the North American Review, drew up many important acts of 
Congress, such as the Judiciary and the Crimes Act, and discharged the duties of law pro- 
fessor with regularity and success. " In quantity, all other authors in the English law, 
and all judges, must yield to him the palm." 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 127 

Story's legal text-books, by which chiefly he is known to the public, are Commentaries 
on the Law of Bjiihueiits (largely superseding Sir William Jones's work), on theCk)nstitution 
of the United States, on the Conflict of Laws (tninshited into German and French), on Equity 
Jurisprudence, on the Law of Agency, on the Law of Partnership, of Bills of Exchange, 
Promissory Notes, etc. 

By the breadth of reseai-ch and the liberality of spirit manifested in these works, espe- 
cially in the Treatise on the Conflict of Laws, the author earned for himself a lasting repu- 
tation not only among his countrymen but also among the jurists of France, Germany, and 
England. Judge Story's works, however, all suffer from one defect. They are too difi'use. 
The materials which they contain are very ample, but they are not sufficiently worked up 
by the author. The young student especially is bewildered oftentimes in a labyrinth of 
seemingly contradictory decisions and arguments, and feels the want of a few skilful, 
trenchant words from the compiler. 

Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1845, son of James Otis, was a native of Boston, and a graduate 
of Harvard, of the class of 1783. He was United States Senator from 1817 to 1822, and held 
various important posts. He was celebrated for his eloquence. He published Letters in 
Befence of the Hartford Convention, Speech on restricting Slavery in Missouri, Eulogy on 
Hamilton, and several other orations and addresses. 

Jah£8 Sullivan, LL.D., 1774-1839, was bom at Saco, Maine, and graduated at Harvard, in 
the class of 1792, He studied law, and practised many years in Boston, with great success. 
He published Political C 1 ass-Book ; Moral Class-Book; Historical Class-Book; Historical 
Causes and Efi"ects; Familiar Letters on the Public Men of the Revolution, a defence of the 
old Federalists against the animadversions in Jefi"erson's Memorial ; also nmnerous Addresses. 

Thomas Addis Emmet, 1764^1827, was aa Irish patriot and exile, who settled in New York, 
and rose to eminence there as a lawyer. He published Pieces of Irish History, in Illustra- 
tion of the condition of the Catholics in Ireland. He was the brother of the famous Robert 
Emmet, who was tried and executed for treason in 1803. 

WiLLiAM Rawle, 1759-1836, a prominent member of the Philadelphia bar, was distinguished 
also for his literary attainments. Several of his speeches have been published. He is gener- 
ally known, however, as the author of a treatise on the Constitution of the United Stiites 
which was, for a long while, the leading manual on the subject. It has been surpassed, in 
a measure, but scarcely superseded by later works. 

Alex.ander James Dallas, 1759-1817, the father of George M. Dallas, was a native of Ja- 
maica, and was educated in London, where he early made the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson 
and Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Dallas emigrated to the United States in 1783, and settled in 
Philadelphia. He rose to emiuence at the bar, and published sevei-al valuable law books. 
In addition to these, he was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and conducted 
for some time The Columbian Magazine. He published also Features of Jay's Treaty ; 
Speeches on the Trial of Blount ; Address to the Constitutional Republicans ; The Causes 
and Character of the Late War (that of 1812), etc. 

Ui 

Henbt^. Beackenkidge, 1786 , son of the Brackenridge mentioned in the previous 

chapter, and a distinguished jurist, was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Besides works on 
legal subjects, he has written several of a popular character: Views of Louisiana; Voyage 
to South America ; Recollections of Persons and Places in the West ; History of the Second 
War between the United States and Great Britain ; A Letter to Mr. Monroe. 

John Taylor, 18'24, was a native of Virginia, and a graduate of Princeton, of the class 

of 1790. His writings, chiefly political, were held in high estimation by Jefferson : Inquiry 



128 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

into the Principles and Policy of the United States ; Constitution Constrned and Constitntion 
Vindicated ; Tyranny Unmasked ; New Yiew of the Constitution of the United States ; Ara- 
tor, a series of agricultural essays. 



VI. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 

Chief-Justice Marshall. 

John Marshall, 1755-1835, long Chief Justice of the United States, 
connected himself with the general literature of the country bj his Life of 
Washington. 

Judge Marshall was a native of Yirginia, and sers^ed in the -war of Independence. He was 
admitted to the bar, and gradually rose to the high position of Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, retaining it from 1801 until his death. 

Marshall's Life of Washington is an able but rather heavy work. It is not so much a life 
of Washington himself as of the times in which he lived, and the biographer has not suc- 
ceeded in investing Washington with the attractiveness and the air of individualized reality 
which such a hero demands. As a depository of valuable facts and researches, Marshall's 
Life will ever retain its utihty ; but as a biography of Washington, it has been superseded 
by the works of Sparks and Irving. 

Marshall's chief service to his country was rendered in his judicial capacity. For upwards 
of thirty years Chief Justice of the highest tribunal in the land, at a time when that tribunal 
was literally in its infancy, Marshall, and his coadjutors animated by his spirit, laid the 
foundations of American national jurisprudence, and developed the great body of American 
constitutional law, a system from which his successors have rarely departed, and never to 
their own or their countrj^'s good. Marshall was preeminently of a judicial mind, distin- 
guished for the accuracy and soundness of his judgments. 

Ret. Mason L. Weems, 1759-1825, was an Episcopal clergyman, who oflBciated, in the time 
of Washington, in a church near Mount Yeruon. Later in life he was a travelling book- 
agent for Matthew Carey. lie died in Beanfort, South Carolina. He wrote a number of 
popular biographies : Life of Wa^shington ; Life of Marion ; Life of Franklin ; LifeofPenn; 
The Old Bachelor; The Drunkard's Looking-Glass, etc. "Some of Mr. Weems's pamphlets 
on drunkenness would be most admirable in their effects, but for the fact that you know 
not what to believe of the narrative. There are passages of deep pathos and great eloquence 
in them. His histories of Washington and Marion are very popular, but the same must be 
said of them : you know not how much of fiction there is in them. That of Washington 
h:<s probably gone through more editions than all others, and has been read by more persons 
than that of Marshall, Ramsay, Bancroft, and Irving, put together." — Bishop Meade. 

Aaron Bancroft, D. P ,1755-1840, father of the historian, was himself a isTiter in good 
repute. He was the author of a Life of Washington, based on Marshall's, and of a volume 
of Sermons on the Doctrines of the Gospel. He was settled for more than half a century as 
minister at Worcester, and died there in his eighty-fifth year. 

Abdiel Holmes, D.D., 1763-1837, father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, was a native of Wood- 
stock, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1783. He was a Congregational 
pastor at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wrote a Life of President Ezra Styles, a Memoir 
of the French Protestants, and a History of the town of Cambridge. His great work, how- 
ever, is his American Annals, published in 1805, 2 vols., 8vo, pronounced by Jared Sparks 
to be "the best repository of historical, chronological, and biographical knowledge respect- 
ing America that can be found embodied in one volume." 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 129 

Elkanah Watson, 1758-1842, was bom at Plymouth, Massachusetts. In the early part 
of his life he visited Europe, and while there published in London an account of his travels 
through the wilderness of New York. He lived many years in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 
In 1815, he removed to Albany, and in 1825 to Port Kent, on Lake Champlain, where he 
remained until his death. His publications are : A Tour in Holland in 1784; History of the 
Western Canals in New York ; History of Agricultural Societies ; Men and Times of the 
Revolution, being his Autobiography, 

Hannah Adams. 

Mes. Haxxah Adams, 1755-1832, was the first American woman who 
devoted herself to authorship. Her chief work, A View of Keligions, 
though now little known, was once a familiar hook among all classes. 

Mrs. Adams was a native of Massachusetts. Her principal work was a View of Religions, 
in which she gave a comprehensive survey of the various religions of the world. The work 
was well received, and had an extensive circulation, but is now little known. She wrote 
also a History of New England, a History of the Jews, and Evidences of Christianity. She 
was a woman of varied learning and indomitable perseverance. She died in Brookline, 
Massachusetts, and was buried in Mount Auburn, — the first person whose body was placed 
in that beautiful cemetery. 

Samtjel Lorenzo Knapp, 1784-1838, was a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Dart- 
mouth College. He edited the Boston Gazette and the Boston Monthly Magazine. He also 
published a number of biographical sketches of distinguished Americans, one or two volumes 
of travels, a work in defence of Freemasonry, and one volume of short stories. 

Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., 1768-1842, was a native of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and 
a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1787. He was librarian at Harvard from 1791 to 1793, 
and pastor of the Congregational Church of Dorchester the last fifty years of his life. 
Among his published works are the following : Discourses in favor of Freemasonry ; The 
Minor Encyclopedia, 4 vols.; Journal of a Tour northwest of the Alleghany Mountains; 
Natural History of the Bible; Memorials of the First Church of Dorchester; Biographical 
Memoirs of Oglethorpe. 

At a school exhibition in Dorchester, Edward Everett, then a boy of four years, was called 
upon to " speak a piece." The verses were written for the young orator by the minister, Mr. 
Harris. They are an interesting reminiscence of both parties. The "little roan" refers to 
the color of young Everett's hair : 

THE LITTLE ORATOR. 

Pray how should I, a little lad. 

In speaking make a figure? 
You're only joking, I'm afraid, — 

Do wait till I am bigger. 

But, since you wish to hear my part, 

And urge me to begin it, 
I'll strive for praise, with all my heart, 

Though small the hope to win it. 

I'll tell a tale how farmer John 
A little roan-colt bred, sir, 
I 



130 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And every night and every morn 
He water'd and he fed, sir. 

Said neighbour Joe to farmer John, 

"Arn't you a silly dolt, sir, 
To spend such time and care upon^ 

A little useless colt, sir?" 

Said farmer John to neighbour Joe, 

"I'll bring my little roan up. 
Not for the good he now can do. 

But will do, when he 's grown up." 

The moral you can well espy. 

To keep the tale from spoiling; 
The little colt, you think, is I, — 

I know it by your smiling. 

And now, my friends, please to excuse 

My lisping and my stammers ; 
I, for this once, have done my best. 

And so — I'll make my manners. 

TlMOTHT PiTKiNS, LL.D., 1766-1847, was a native of Farmington, Connecticut, and a grad- 
uate of Yale, class of 1785. He was a lawyer and a politician. He wrote Statistical View 
of the Commerce of the United States ; and Political and Civil History of the United States 
from 1763 to 1797. 

Alden Bradford, LL.D., 1765-1843, a native of Massachusetts, was the author of a History 
of that State. 

Rev. Joseph B. Felt, 1789 , is a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and a graduate of 

Dartmouth. Mr. Felt has cultivated with good results the too much neglected study of 
local history. His publications are : Annals of Salem ; History of Ipswich, Essex, and Hamil- 
ton; Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency, &c. 

Alexander Graydon, 1752-1818, published, in 1811, Memoirs of a Life, Passed chiefly in 
Pennsylvania, within the Last Sixty Years. Graydon was a native of Bristol, Pennsylvania, 
and was educated in Philadelphia. During the revolutionary struggle, he was brought into 
contact with many of the celebrities of the times. The latter part of his life was spent in 
and near Harrisburg. His Memoirs, written in his old age, are written in a lively, enter- 
taining style, and contain much curious information. 

Charles Miner, 1800-1865, a man of letters, long a resident of the Wyoming Valley in 
Pennsylvania, gathered up the floating traditions of that romantic region. Hie publications 
are : A History of Wyoming ; Essays from the Desk of Poor Robert the Scribe ; Ballad of 
James Bird. He edited various papers in Wilkesbarre and in West Chester. 

John Armstrong, 1758-1843, a native of Pennsylvania, and a general in the United States 
army. He wrote War of 1812, Treatise upon Gardening, Treatise upon Agriculture, etc. 

John Leeds Bosman, 1757-182.3, a native of Maryland, and an eminent lawyer, and writer 
on law. He wrote also on popular subjects, contributing both in prose and verse to Deunie's 
Portfolio. Ho published a History of Maryland, 2 vols., 8vo. 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 131 



Isaiah Thomas. 

Isaiah Thomas, LL.D., 1749-1831, is chiefly known by his History of 
Printing, 2 vols., 8vo, published in 1810. 

Thomas's early history connects him with the period of the Revolution. But he lived to 
be over eighty, and continued his active labors almost to the last, so that his chief doings 
come within the present century. Ilis first public engagement was in the publication of a 
newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, in 1770. He began business in Boston, but in 1774 removed 
to Worcester, where all his subsequent operations were conducted. He remained connected 
with the Spy until 1801. He was concerned also with the Massachusetts Magazine, of which 
eight volumes were issued, 17S9-1796, and also with the Farmer's Museum. Besides a gen- 
eral book business, he published at Worcester a folio Bible, Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and 
a great variety of other works. His own chief work, the History of Printing, is held in high 
estimation, especially for its notices of the early labors of the press on this continent. 
Thomas published also a New England Almanac, something like the Poor Richard's Almanac 
of Franklin. Thomas's Almanac was continued, under some change of titles, for forty-two 
years. 

Thomas made himself a public benefactor by his labors and gifts in founding the American 
Antiquarian Society of Worcester, — a model institution of its kind. 

Jedediah Mokse, D. D., 1761-1826, was the father of Geography, in this country. Morse's 
Geography was the first text-book on that subject introduced to any extent into the schools 
of the United States. Dr. Morse was a native of Woodstock, Connecticut, and a graduate 
of Yale. He distinguished himself by several geographical and historical works of value: 
American Atlas, a Geographical Description of the Whole Continent of North America; 
Geography Made Easy ; Elements of Geography; The American Gazetteer; Annals of the 
American Revolution ; A Compendious History of New England, etc. 

William C. Woodbridge, 1795-1845, came next after Morse as a writer of Geographies. Mr. 
Woodbridge was born in Connecticut, and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1811. He studied 
theology, but was prevented by feeble health from preaching. He became a teacher of the 
Deaf and Dumb, in Mr. Gallaudet's Institution, at Hartford. He was one of the first in the 
United States to prepare a text-book on Geography, and his work had a great run. It was 
published in three forms : Universal Geography, Ancient and Modern, the ancient part being 
prepared by Mrs. Emma Willard ; Rudiments of Geography ; Modern School Geography. 

RoswELL C. Smith, 1797 , was the author of a series of school-books. Geography, Gram- 
mar, and Arithmetic, which had an enormous sale. They are still largely used. 



VII. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Samuel Stanhope Smith. 

Samuei. Stanhope Smith, D.D., LL. D., 1750-1819, seventh in the 
distinguished line of Presidents of the College of New Jersey, was the 
author of several important philosophical and theological works. One 
of these. On the Variety of Complexion and Figure of the Human Species, 
attracted great attention in its day. 



132 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Smith -was a native of Pequea, Pennsylvania, and a graduate of Princeton, of the class 
of 1769. He was for a time President of Hampden Sidney in Tirginia; then Professor of 
Moral Philosophy at Princeton ; and finally, from 1794 to 1812, President of the College. He 
married a daughter of his predecessor, Dr. Witherspoon. Dr. Smith -was greatly admired for 
the elegance of his manners and appearance, as well a.s for his eloquence as a lecturer 
and preacher. Besides the work already quoted, he published Lectures on the Evidences of 
the Christian Religion ; Lectures on Moral and Political Philosophy ; A Comprehensive 
View of the Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion ; and a Yolume of Sermons. 

" Yiewing him [Dr. Smith] in his meridian, I have never seen his equal in elegance of 
person and manners. Dignity and winning grace were remarkably united in his expressive 
countenance. His large blue eye had a penetration which commanded the respect of all 
beholders. Notwithstanding the want of health, his cheek had a rosy tint, and his smile 
lighted up the whole face. The tones of his elocution had a thrilling peculiarity, and this 
was more remarkable in his preaching, in which, it is well known, he imitated the elaborate 
polish of the French school." — Dr. Archibald Alexander. 

Henet Kollock, D. D., 1778-1819, was a native of New Providence, New Jersey, and a 
graduate of the College at Princeton. He was for many years pastor of the Presbyterian 
church in Savannah, Georgia. His Sermons were published in 4 vols., 8vo. He was greatly 
celebrated aa a pulpit orator. He is said to have imitated, in his style and delivery, his in- 
structor, Dr. Stanhope Smith. 

Sheppard K. Kollock, D. D., 1795 , brother to Dr. Henry Kollock, was a native of 

Elizabeth, and a graduate of Princeton, New Jersey. After preaching for several years in 
Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, he became in 1818 Professor of Rhetoric in the 
University of North Carolina. In 1825 he became Pastor of the church in Norfolk, Virginia, 
and continued in it ten years. He afterAvards returned to New Jersey, and was for a time 
Secretary of the Board of Domestic Missions. He published a Biography of Rev. Henry 
Kollock; Ministerial Character ; Best Method of Delivering Sermons ; Treatise on the Per- 
severance of the Saints ; Pastoral Reminiscences, etc. 

Ashbel Green. 
AsHBEL Green, D.D., 1762-1848, eighth President of the College of 
New Jersey, was one of the distinguished lights and ornaments of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States. He published several separate 
works, but tlie great bulk of his writings is contained in the volumes of The 
Christian Advocate, a religious monthly which he edited, and a large part 
of which he wrote. 

Dr. Green was a native of Hanover, New Jersey, and was graduated at Princeton, under 
the Presidency of Dr. Witherspoon, in the class of 1783. At the time of his graduation, tlie 
Congress of the United States was meeting at Princeton, and being present on the platform 
during the exercises, young Green, who was the valedictorian, made an address to Wash- 
ington which was long remembered in the traditions of tlie College on account of its bril- 
liant eloquence. In 1787 he became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Philadel- 
phia, where he greatly distingui.shed himself as a pulpit orator. From 1792 to 1800 he 
officiated as chaplain to Congress, which then met in Philadelphia. In 1812, he became 
President of Princeton College. He resigned the office in 1822, and lived in retirement in 
Philadelphia the remainder of his days. For twelve years of that time, 1822-1834, he pub- 
lished the religious monthly already mentioned, The Christian Advocate, writing a large 
part of the articles himself. The Advocate wielded a powerful influence in the Church, oc- 
cupying in some respects, though in a less degree, the same position that has since been held 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 133 

by the Princeton Review. In the discussions between Old and New School, which were 
then beginning to rise, The Advocate held bold and decided ground on the Old School side. 
Dr. Green took an active and conspicuous part in the later stages of the discussion, and in 
the final act of disruption. After that, he retired entirely from pnblic life. 

Dr. Green's last two years, from the eighty-second to the eiglity -fourth, were spent in writ- 
ing his autobiography. 

Besides the 12 volumes of The Christian Advocate, a large part of which was from his own 
pen, he wrote An Autobiography, already named ; A History of Presbyterian Missions ; Lec- 
tures on the Shorter Catechism; Discourses on the College of New Jersey, with a History 
of the College, besides numerous pamphlet Sermons and Addresses. A Memoir of his Life, 
large 8vo, was written by Dr. Joseph H. Jones. 

"As a writer, his stjie is not unlike that of his model, Dr. Witherspoon, remarkably per- 
spicuous, showing a clear perception of his subject ; it is chaste, wholly free from all that is 
quaint, afifected, foreign, and barbarous. The grand quality of Dr. Green's style may be said 
to have been strength ; by means of which, even when the thought was familiar, it was car- 
ried to the mind with unusual condensation and force. His Lectures on the Shorter Cate- 
chism are probably the most useful and generally popular of all his instructive works." — 
Dr. Joseph H. Jones. 

Dr. Mason. 

John M. Mason, D.D., 1770-1829, has the reputation of having been one 
of the most accomplished pulpit orators that the country has yet produced. 

Dr. Mason was a native of New York city and a graduate of Columbia College. He was 
Provost of Columbia College from 1811 to 1816, and President of Dickinson College, Carlisle, 
from 1821 to 1824. He returned to New York in 1824, and remained there until his death. 
His Sermons and other writings have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. His Oration on the 
Death of Hamilton was his most celebrated performance. 

CHARACTER OF HAMILTON. 

He was born to be great. Whoever was second, Hamilton must be first. To his stupen- 
dous and versatile miud no investigation was difficult, no subject presented which he did not 
illuminate. Superiority, in some particular, belongs to thousands. Pre-eminence, in what- 
ever he chose to undertake, was the prerogative of Hamilton. No fixed criterion could be 
applied to his talents. Often has their display been supposed to have reached the limit of 
human effort, and the judgment stood firm till set aside by himself. When a cause of new mag- 
nitude required new exertion, he rose, he towered, he soared ; surpassing himself as he sur- 
passed others. Then was nature tributary to his eloquence ! Then was fnlt his despotism 
over the heart ! Touching at his pleasure every string of pity or terror, of indignation or 
grief, he melted, he soothed, he roused, he agitated; alternately gentle as the dews and 
awful as the thunder. Yet, great as he was in the eyes of the world, he was greater in the 
eyes of those with whom he was most conversant. The greatness of most men, like objects 
seen through a mist, diminishes with the distance; but Hamilton, like a tower seen afar 
off under a clear sky, rose in grandeur and sublimity with every step of approach. Famili- 
arity with him was the parent of veneration. Over these matchless talents probity threw 
her brightest lustre. Frankness, suavity, tenderness, benevolence, breathed through their 
exercise. And to his family ! —but he is gone — that noble heart beats no more ; that eye 
of fire is dimmed ; and sealed are those oracular lips. Americans, the serenest beam of your 
glory is extinguished in the tomb. 

John H. Rick, D.D., 1777-1831, an eminent Presbyterian divine, was born in New London, 
Virginia. He was for some time Tutor in Hampden Sidney College, during the Presidency 
12 



134 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of Archibald Alexander. He preached for several years with great applause in Richmond. 
In 1823, he was tendered the Presidency of Princeton College, but accepted instead of it a 
Professorship in the Union Theological Seminary of Virginia. In the latter institution he 
continued until his death. Dr. Rice was an eloquent speaker, and his labors in that line 
were abundant. His writings are comparatively few: A Memoir of President Davies; A 
Memoir of Rev. J.B.Taylor; Considerations on Religion; two articles in the Princeton 
Review, and numerous contributions to The Yirginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine. 

T. Charlton Henbt, D.D., 1790-1827, a native of Philadelphia, was the eldest son of 
Alexander Henry (long known as President of the American Sunday-School Union). Dr. 
Henrj' was graduated at Middlebury College, studied theology at Princeton, and became 
in 1818 pastor of the Presbyterian church in Columbia, South Carolina. After preaching 
there for five years, he was settled in Charleston, and attracted great applause as a pulpit 
orator. He died there of the yellow fever, in 1827. His publications are the following : An 
Inquiry into the Consistency of Popular Amusements with a Profession of Christianity ; 
Moral Etchings for the Religious World ; Letters to an Anxious Inquirer. 

Dr. Nott. 

Eliphalet Nott, D.D., LL.D., 1773-1866, a Presbyterian divine, for 
sixty-two years President of Union College, was the author of a small work 
on Intemperance, wliich is worthy of special note. 

Dr. Nott was a native of Ashford, Connecticut, and a graduate of Brown University, of the 
class of 1792. He became Pi-e^ident of Union College in 180i, and continued to hold the 
position until his death. He was an eloquent preacher, and was very celebrated for his 
wisdom and skill as an administrator of College affairs. He published two works only, both, 
however, giving evidence of power and of practised skill as a writer, and worthy of his great 
fame. These were Counsels to Young Men, and Lectures on Temperance. The work last 
named had a large sale and was very useful in arresting the evil of drunkenness. Dr. 
Carnahan, then President of Princeton College, thought so highly of these Temperance Lec- 
tures, at the time of their first appearance, that he called the students of the College 
together, in a series of special services, and read to the students the whole of these Lectures, 
saying at the same time that they contained his own sentiments, but expressed more forcibly 
than he himself could express them. 

Alexander M. Proudfit, D.D., 1770-1843, was bom at Pequea, Pennsylvania, and graduated 
at Columbia College, New York, class of 1792. He was an eminent clergyman in the Asso- 
ciate Reformed Presbyterian Church. He published Discourses on the Ruin and Recovery 
of Man ; Discourses on the Doctrines and Duties of Christianity ; Discourses on the Para- 
bles, etc. 

Alexander McLeod, D. D., 1775-1833, long known as the pastor of the First Reformed 
Presbyterian Church in the city of New York, was a native of St. Kilda. He came to the 
United States at the age of eighteen, and studied at Union College. His publications are the 
following : The Messiah ; The Ministry ; The Book of Revelation ; The Life and Power of God- 
liness; Negro Slavery Unjustifiable, &c. 

Samuel B. Wtlie, D. D., 1773-1852, was born near BalljTuena, Ireland, and educated at the 
University of Glasgow. He emigrated to Philadelphia in 1797 ; taught for many years with 
success ; and was pastor of the First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia from 1801 
to 1852. lie was also, at the same time. Professor of Theology in the Seminary of his church, 
from 1809 to 1851 ; and Professor of Ancient Languages in the University of Pennsylvania, 




FROM 1800 TO 1830. 135 

from 1828 to 1845. He published The Faithful Witness for Magistracy and Ministry upon a 
Scriptural Basis ; Covenanting ; Life of Alexander McLeod, etc. 

James P. Wilson, D. D., 1769-1830, long known as the pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church, Philadelphia. He was born at Lewes, Delaware, and graduated at the University 
of Pennsylvania, in the class of 1788. He published Lectures on the Parables ; Common 
Objections to Christianity ; Hope of Immortality ; Primitive Government of Christian 
Churches ; Easy Introduction to Hebrew ; Eissay on Grammar. The work last named con- 
tained many ingenious and original reflections. 

Rev. Samuel Whelplet, 1766-1817, originally a Baptist, afterwards a Presbyterian minis- 
ter, is chiefly known by a theological book, called The Triangle, being a discussion of three 
disputed points. Mr. Whelpley also wrote A Compend of History. The latter was for a 
long time much used as a text-book for schools. 



President Day. 

Jeeemiah Day, LL. D., 1773-1867, one of" the illustrious Presidents of 
Yale College, was the author of a popular series of mathematical text-books. 

President Day was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale. He was connected 
with the institution as Professor and President from 1801 to 1846. He was the author of 
the following works : Algebra for the Use of Colleges ; A Course of Mathematics ; Inquiry 
respecting Contingent Tolition ; Examination of Edwards on the Will. His Algebra is 
marked with great simplicity and clearness of statement, and is one of the most popular 
■works on that subject ever published. 

Rev. John Mitchell, 179.5 , was a native of Chester, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, 

of the class of 1811. He wrote A Guide to the Principles and Practice of the Congregational 
Churches of New England; Letters to a Disbeliever in Revivals ; Notes from over the Sea; 
Reminiscences of Scenes and Characters in College ; My Mother, or Recollections of Maternal 
Influence ; Rachel Kell, or the Diamond, etc. 

Leonard Withington, D. D., 1789 , was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and grad- 
uated at Yale, in the class of 1814. He was pastor of the First Church at Newbury, Massa- 
chusetts, from 1816 to 1858. He has publislied, Solomon's Song, Translated and Explained, 
a work of great research, giving much information in regard to the laws of Hebrew poetry; 
The Puritan, a series of essays ; Penitential Tears, etc. 



Dr. Emmons. 

Nathaniel Emmons, D. D., 1745-1840, was one of the great lights of 
theology in New England during the latter part of last century and the 
earlier part of this century. His works have been published in six octavo 
volumes. 

Dr. Emmons was a native of East Haddam, Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale. He lived 
to his ninety-sixth year, and retained his faculties to the close. He was minister to the 
church in Franklin, Massachusetts, seventy years. 

Dr. Emmons held some peculiar religious views, which led to a good deal of discussion. 
His style is descrilied as being direct aud forcible, but without ornament. One of his aphor- 
isms, in regard to style, is this : " Style is only the frame to hold our thoughts. It ia like 



136 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the sash of a window ; a heavy sash will obscure the light. The object is to have as little 
sash as will hold the lights, that we may not thiDk of the frame, but have the most light." 

One of Dr. Emmons's sermons made a great noise at the time. It was known as his Jero- 
boam Sermon. It was written on the occasion of JeflFerson's inauguration as President, and 
although Jefferson is not named, the delineation of the character of Jeroboam is such that 
no one can doubt the personal application intended. 

The Doctor was celebrated for his repartees, in this resembling Dr. Witherspoon. He 
often condensed his thoughts into the form of apothegms. The following are examples : 
On being asked what was the best system of rhetoric for a clergyman, he gave these 
two rules, " First, have something to say ; secondly, saj' it." Another of his sayings was 
" Be short in all religious exercises. Better have people longing than loathing. No con- 
versions after the hour is out." 

Professor Park, of Andover, speaking of Dr. Emmons's great age, makes the following 
statement in regard to the habits of study and the longevity of the old New England di- 
vines: "We read of the two Edwardses, Hopkins, Smalley, Stiles, Chauncy, and Dwight, as 
at their books thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sometimes eighteen hours of the day. Dr. Em- 
mons, in this respect, equalled any of them. Mr. Stoddard of Northampton died at eighty- 
six ; Dr. Increase Mather at eighty-four ; Dr. Cotton Mather at sixty-five ; Dr. Stiles at sixty- 
eight ; Dr. Johnson at seventy-six ; Dr. Hopkins at eighty-three ; Dr. Bellamy at seventy- 
two ; Dr. Hart at sixty-nine; President Chauncy, of Harvard, and Dr. Chauncy, of Boston, 
at eighty-two; Dr. Smalley at eighty-six; Dr. West at eighty-four; Dr. Strong at sixty- 
eight ; Dr. Lothrop at ninety." 

Stephen West, D.D., 1735-1819, was born at Tolland, Connecticut, and graduated at Tale, 
in the class of 1755. He was minister to the Congregational church in Stockbridge, Massa- 
chusetts, from 1759 to 1818. He published An Essay on Moral Agency; An Essay on the 
Atonement ; Evidences of the Divinity of Christ ; Life of Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D. 

Seth Williston, D. D., 1770-1851, was born at SufiBeld, Connecticut, and graduated at 
Dartmouth, in the class of 1791. He published Sermons on Doctrinal and Experimental 
Religion; Discourses on the Sabbath; Vindication of the Reformation; Sermons on the 
Incarnation and the Spirit; Sermons adapted to Revivals; Harmony of Divine Truth; Dis- 
courses on the Temptation of Christ ; Lectures on the Moral Imperfections of Christiana ; 
Millennial Discourses, etc. 



Leonard Woods. 

Leonard Woods, D. D., 1774-1854, was a leading Calvinistic divine in 
New England during all the earlier part of this century. 

Dr. Woods was born in Princeton, Massachusetts, and graduated at Harvard, with the first 
honors of the class of 1796. He was Professor of Theology at Andover, from 1808 to 1846, 
and then Emeritus Professor until his death in 1854. Dr. Woods was held in great honor 
throughout the Presbyterian Church, as well as in New England. He published, Letters 
to Unitarians; Lectures on the Inspiration of the Scriptures ; Examination of the Doctrine 
of Perfection ; Lectures on Church Government; Lectures on Swedenborgianism ; Memoirs 
of American Missionaries, etc. His Works are printed in 5 vols., 8vo. 

Ebenezer Porter, D. D., 1772-1834, was a native of Cornwall, Connecticut, and a graduate 
of Dartmouth, of the class of 1792. After serving for fifteen years in the pastorate, he be- 
came, in 1811, Professor of Pulpit Eloquence in the Andover Theological Seminary, and 
remained in that institution until his death, being at the head of it the laist seven years of 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 137 

his fife. He was distinguished as a preacher, .and his best known publications are those 
connected with elocution and delivery. The following are the chief: Analysis of the Vocal 
Inflections; Analysis of the Principles of Rhetorical Delivery ; Rhetorical Reader, which 
has reached the three hundredth edition; The Young Preacher's Manual ; Lectures on Eloquence 
and Style; Lectures on Revivals of Religion; Lectures on the Cultivation of Spiritual 
Habits and Progress, in Study; Lectures on Homiletics, Preaching, and Public Prayer. 

Noah Worcester, D.D., 1758-1837, was bom in HoUis, New Hampshire. He preached 
successively at Thornton and Salisbury, New Hampshire. In 1813 he removed to Brighton, 
Massachusetts, and remained there till his death in 1837. "While there, from 1816 to 1828, 
he was Secretary of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and edited The Friend of Peace. His 
publications are chiefly on the subject of Peace, or on the Unitarian controversy. The fol- 
lowing are some of them : Review of the Custom of War ; Review of the Testimonies in favor 
of the Divinity of the Son of God ; Respectful Address to the Unitarian Clergy ; The Atoning 
Sacrifice a Display of Love and not of Wrath, etc. 

Samuel Worcester, D.D., 1770-1821, brother of Noah Worcester, was born in Hollis, New 
Hampshire, and graduated at Dartmouth, in the class of 1795. He preached first at Fitch- 
burg, Massachusetts, and then at Salem, and was Corresponding Secretary of the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from 1810 to the time of his death. He pub- 
lished Three Letters to Dr. Channing, on the Unitarian Controversy; Sermons on the 
Doctrine of Eternal Judgment; Discourse on the Covenant with Abraham; and a Hymn 
Book, containing Watts's Hymns entire, and a Selection in addition. 

Edward Patson, D.D., 1783-1827, was a native of Rindge, New Hampshire, and a graduate 
of Harvard, of the class of 1843. He was settled in the Congregational church in Portland, 
Maine, from 1807 to the time of his death. He was celebrated for the fervor of his piety. 
His Sermons, with a Memoir, have been printed in 3 vols., and are admirable specimens of 
that species of composition. 

Bishop Hobart. 

John Henry Hobaet, D.D., 1775-1830, Bishop of New York, was in 
his day the acknowledged leader of Episcopacy in the United States. 

Bishop Hobart was a native of Philadelphia, and a graduate of Princeton, of the class of 
1793. All the later years of his life were spent in New York city, as Rector of Trinity Church, 
as Professor in the General Theological Seminarj', and finally as Bishop of the Diocese. He 
was an earnest advocate of the necessity of Episcopal Ordination, and had a controversy on 
this subject with the celebrated Dr. John Mason. Besides his controvei-sial writings. Bishop 
Hobart published the following works : Companion for the Altar; Companion for the Fasts 
and Festivals ; The State of Departed Spirits ; Communicant's Manual ; Clergyman's Com- 
panion, etc. 

Alexander Y. Griswold, D.D., 1766-1843, another eminent Bishop of the Episcopal Church, 
was bom in Simsbury, Connecticut. He was ordained in 1795; was in 1810 elected Bishop 
of the Eastern Diocese, including Massachusetts, Yermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode 
Island; and in 1836, on the death of Bishop White, became Senior Bishop in the United 
States. Bishop Griswold was greatly venerated, and exercised a powerful influence in the 
communion to which he belonged. Ilis published writings, however, were not numerous: 
Reformation and the Apostolic Office; Remarks on Social Prayer-Meotings ; Sermons; 
Prayers. His Memoirs, containing many of his letters, have been written by John S. Stone, 
D.D. 

12* 



138 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

John Bowden, D.D., 1752-1817, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Columbia College, wrote 
a work on The Apostolic Origin of Episcopacy, in reply to Dr. Samuel Miller. 

George Townsend Bedell, D.D., 1793-1834, was an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia, 
of great eminence as a preacher and as a wi-iter. He was a native of Staten Island, New 
Tork. His works were all on practical leligion, and many of them were written for the 
American Sunday-School Union. The principal were: Sermons, 2 vols.; Way Marks; 
Ezekiel's Vision ; Is it well ? It is well ; Christian Progression ; Pay Thy Vows. 

Theodore Dehon, D. D., 1776-1817, was a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard. He 
l^ook orders in the Episcopal Church; preached in Newport, Rhode Island, then in Charleston, 
and finally became Bishop of South Carolina. " He was respected as a man of talents, and 
beloved for his amiable qualities and many virtues." — Allen's Biog. Diet. Two volumes of 
his Sermons have been published- 

Rev. Frederick Dalcho, 1769-1836, was a native of London, but came to the United States 
when a boy, and settled in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a ph3'sician at first, but 
afterwards became an Episcopal minister. He wrote Evidenceof the Divinity of our Saviour; 
Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina ; and Ahimau 
Rezon, for the Freemasons. 

Dr. Ware. 

Henry Ware, D. D., 1764^1845, was the leading preacher and divine 
of the Unitarians in New England, at the time when the lines were drawn 
between the Unitarians and the Orthodox. 

Dr. Ware was bom at Sherbourne, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard. He was 
settled over the Congregational church at Hingham in 1787, and remained there for eigh- 
teen years, acquiring a high reputation as a preacher. He then, 1805, received the appoint- 
ment of Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard, and his election, being a test of strength 
between the Unitarians and the Orthodox, and the first decided triumph of the former, led 
to a heated controversy, in which, however. Dr. Ware took no part. 

Dr. Ware resigned the Professorship in 1840, in order to devote himself exclusively to the 
Divinity School, and in 1842 he retired entirely from public duty. He published, in 1820, 
Letters to Trinitarians and Calvinists, occasioned by Dr. Woods's " Letters to Unitarians." 
Shortly before his death he published An Inquiry into the Foundation, Evidences, and Truths 
of Religion, being a selection from his course of lectures. 

Rev. John Sherman, 1772-1828, a grandson of Roger Sherman of Revolutionary memory, 
was born in New Haven, and graduated at Yale, 1792. He was settled as a pastor, first at 
Mansfield, Connecticut, and afterwards at Trenton Falls, New York. His work, One God in 
One Person only, and Jesus Christ a Being Distinct from God, " was the first formal and 
elaborate defence of Unitarianism that appeared in New England." — Spragne's Annals. Sher- 
man published also Philosophy of Language Illustrated, being an entirely new system of 
Grammar; and A Description of Trenton Falls. 

Rev. Samuel C. Thacher, 1785-1818, a Unitarian clergyman, was born at Boston, and grad- 
uated at Harvard, in the class of 1804. He was pastor of the New South Church, Boston, 
from 1811 to 1818. He published An Apology for Rational and Evangelical Christianity ; 
The Unity of God ; The Evidence Necessary to establish the Doctrine of the Trinity ; and a 
volume of Sermons. 

Eev. Joseph Tcckerman, 1778-1840, uncle of the well-known essayist, studied at Harvard, 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 139 

and was for a number of years Unitarian clergj-man in and around Boston. Several of 
his sermons have been published singly. So also his reports on public charities. For a 
number of years previous to his death he was minister at large, devoting his time and energy 
to alleviating the condition of the Boston poor. He was a sound vigorous writer, but his 
claims upon us in this respect are thrown in the shade by the rare excellencies of his 
private character, and his unselfish disposition. 

Bernard Whitman, 1796-1834, a Unitarian clergyman, was born in East Bridgewater, 
Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard; settled at Waltham. He published Village Ser- 
mons ; Friendly Letters to a Universalist ; Discourses on Regeneration, and on Denying the 
Lord Jesus ; and Two Letters on Religious Liberty. 

William Austin, 1778-1841, was a native of Massachusetts, and graduate of Cambridge. 
His publications are : Letters from London, 8vo, 1804 ; Essay on the Human Character of 
Christ ; Peter Rugg, the Missing Man ; Oration on the Battle of Bunker Hill. 

Abiel Abbot, D.D., 1770-1828, graduated at Harvard, Massachusetts. He was the author 
of Letters from Cuba, and several published sermons. 

Dr. Bangs. 

Nathan Bangs, D.D., 1778-1862, was one of the leaders of Methodism 
in the United States, being equally eminent as a preacher and prolific with 
his pen. 

Dr. Bangs was early made the editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal, and had for 
a long time the oversight of all the works issued from the Methodist Book Concern. His 
own publications are the following : Errors of Hopkinsianism ; Predestination Examined ; 
Reformer Reformed ; History of Missions; An Original Church of Christ; Emancipation; 
Life of Freeborn Garretson ; State, Prospects, and Responsibility of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church; Letters on Sanctification ; Life of Arminius; History of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, 4 vols. Dr. Bangs was a native of Stratford, Connecticut. He was elected in 1841 
President of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, but resigned in 1842. 

John Summerfield, 1798-1825, a Methodist preacher, created a prodigious sensation by his 
pulpit eloquence. He was a native of Lancashire, England, and emigrated to New York 
in 1821. After his death, a volume of his Sermons appeared, with a Memoir by John Holland, 
and an Introduction by James Montgomery, the poet. 

Elias Hicks, 1748-1830, was a noted preacher of the Society of Friends, and an earnest 
opponent of slavery. Early in the present century, Hicks's extreme doctrinal views became 
the ground of a violent controversy in the Society, which ended in a schism. Those who 
sided with Hicks are called Hicksites. A Journal of his Life and Religious Labors, his 
Sermons, and his Letters have been published. 

Daniel Wheeler, 1771-1840, greatly respected as a preacher among the Society of Friends, 
was born in London. He served for six years in the Royal Navy, then entered the Army, 
and obtained promotion. In 1799, becoming a Friend, he left military life and turned his 
attention to trade. In 1818, on the invitation of the Emperor Alexander, he removed to 
Russia to superintend works of drainage and agriculture. He went afterwards to New York, 
where he died. The last twenty-four years of his life were spent chiefly in ministerial labors 
in different places. His publications consist of An Address to Professing Christians; An 
Epistle to Friends of York Quarterly Meeting ; Letters and Journal, describing religious 
visit to the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, New South Wales, etc. 




CHAPTER IV. 
From isso to isso. 

The period included in the present chapter was one of great 
and healthy progress. With the increase of material wealth 
came a corresponding growth in the department of letters. The 
number of writers was greatly multiplied, and literature itself 
began to take rank as a regular profession. 

The writers included in Chapter IV. are divided into eight 
sections: 1. The Poets, beginning with Poe; 2. Writers of 
Novels, Tales, etc., beginning with Cooper; 3. Writers of 
History and Biography, beginning with Irving ; 4. Writers on 
Literature and Criticism, beginning with Emerson ; 5. Writers 
on Political Affairs, beginning with Alexander and Edward 
Everett; 6. Scientific Writers, beginning with Silliman; 7. 
Writers on Peligion and Theology, beginning with Archibald 
Alexander; 8. Miscellaneous Writers, beginning with Mrs. Sig- 
ourney. 

I. THE POETS. 

Poe. 

Edgar Allan Poe, 1811-1849, was endowed with poetical gifts of the 
rarest and most wonderful kind. Had he united with these gifts high moral 
principle, and a power of will and of persistent labor, such as marks all 
true greatness, he might have made for himself a name above that of any 
yet known to American letters. The two short poems by which almost 
exclusively he is known, The Eaven and The Bells, although not of the 
140 



I 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 141 

highest order of poetry, and only hints of what the author might have done, 
are yet unique and unsurpassed in their kind. 

Poe was a native of Baltimore. While still very young, he was left an orphan, and 
adopted by Mr. Allan, a Baltimore merchant. Young Poe was sent successively to the 
University of Virginia and to West Point, but w;is dismissed, or advised to leave, in conse- 
quence of his dissipation. He also quarrelled with his benefactor, who henceforth abandoned 
him. Poe resolved thereupon to lead the life of a man of letters. He became editor of 
several magazines and journals, among them. The Southern Literary Messenger, The Gen- 
tleman's Magazine, and Graham's Magazine, besides contributing to many others. After a 
career of reckless intemperance, in which he estranged himself from many of his friends 
and harrowed the feelings of all, he died in a fit of delirium tremens in the Baltimore 
Hospital, at the early age of thirty-eight. 

Brief and unhappy as was his career, Poe has left behind him a memorable name in the 
annals of American literature. He is a remarkable instance of precocity and eccentricity 
of genius. Some of his earlier poems, written before he was twenty, are still much admired. 
His genius was cast in a peculiar mould. His writings are thoroughly pervaded with the 
spirit of melancholy. Poe is pie-eminently the poet of morbid anatomy. 

The writings of Poe group themselves naturally into three classes : Poems), Tales, and 
Literary Criticisms, collected under the heading of The Literati. Among the poems. The 
Raven and The Bells stand alone. Indeed, there are no similar poems to be compared with 
them in English literature. Not that they represent poetry in its highest form. The 
Raven is the expression of absolute despair; The Bells is the rarest instance of the suggest- 
iveness of rhyme and the power of onomatopoetic words. There is nothing exalted or 
morally invigorating about them. But taken for just what they are, they must be pro- 
nounced unique. The Tales are equally powerful as prose specimens. The Murder in 
the Rue Morgue, The Gold Bug, The Mystery of Mary Roget, etc., are unrivalled in their 
word-painting and their power of subtle analysis. And yet, like The Raven and The Bells, 
they leave the mind of the reader depressed and desponding. In his Criticisms Poe displays 
altogether too much acrimony. His remarks are occasionally very just and striking, but 
there runs through them all a spirit of fault-finding. Moreover, in many instances, his 
judgment is completely blinded to real merit. 

Could Poe have overcome his one besetting sin of intemperance, and disciplined his mind 
thoroughly by severe and regular study, he might have become a leader of American 
thought. The genius for such a position was there, but its eccentricities were not toned 
down or eradicated, and hence his life was what it was — a failure, and his works are what 
they are — fragmentary and one-sided. 

There is a curious bit of literary history in regard to The Bells. This poem, as first written 
by Poe and offered for publication, contained only eighteen lines, as follows : 

THE BELLS. — [The original form.] 

The bells!— hear the bells I 
The merry wedding bells 1 
The little silver bells! 
How fairy-like a melody there swella 
From the silver tinkling cells 
Of the bells, bells, bells ! 
Of the bells. 

The bells! —ah, the bells 1 
The heavy Iron bells I 
Hear the tolling of the balls I 
Hear th« knells I 



142 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

How horrible a monody there floats 
From their throats — 
From their deep-toned throats! 

How I shudder at the notes 

From the melancholy throats 
Of the bells, belis, bells — 
Of the bells — 



The poem in this form came into the hands of the writer of the present volume, who was 
then editing Sartain's Magazine. Some months after the receipt of the poem, but before its 
publication, Poe sent the piece altered and enlarged to nearly its present condition. About 
three months later, and before it actually saw the light, he sent me the finished poem in its 
present shape. The facts are only another illustration of the gradual development of ai) 
idea in the mind of a man of genius. 

THE BELLS. 

Hear the sledges with the bells — 

Silver bells ! • 

"What a world of merriment their melody foretells I 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 

In the icy air of night! 
While the stars that oversprinkle 
All the heavens, seem to twinkle 

With a crystalline delight; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, beUs — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 

Hear the mellow wedding-bells — 
Golden bells! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! 
Through the balmy air of night. 
How they ring out their delight!-^ 
From the molten-golden notes, 

And all in tune, 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon! 
Oh, from out the sounding cells, 
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells I 
How it swells! 
How it dwells 
On the future! — how it tells 
Of the rapture that impels 
To the swinging and the ringing 

Of the bells, bells, bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells I 



I 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 143 

Hear the loud alarum bells — 
Brazeu bells ! 
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their aflfright ! 
Too much horrified to speak. 
They can only shriek, shriek, 
Out of tune. 
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire, 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
"With a desperate desire, 
And a resolute endeavor 
Now — now to sit, or never, 
By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! 
"What a tale their terror tells 
Of despair! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar! 
"What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air! 
Yet the ear, it fully knows. 
By the twanging 
And the clanging. 
How the danger ebbs and flows; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells, 
In the jangling 
And the wrangling, 
How the danger sinks and swells, 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells — 
Of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells — 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! 

Hear the tolling of the bells — 
Iron bells! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels I 
In the silence of the night. 
How we shiver with aflfright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 
And the people — ah, the people — 
They that dwell up in the steeple, 
All alone, 
And, who, tolling, tolling, tolling. 

In that mufllcd monotone, 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 
They are neither man nor woman — 
They are neither brute nor human — 



144 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

They are Ghouls: — 
And their king it is who tolls :^ 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
Rolls 
A paean from the bells! 
And his merry bosom swells 

With the paean of the bells! 
And he dances and he yells; 
Keeping time, time, time, 
V In a sort of Runic rhyme. 

To the pseau of the bells — 
Of the bells : — 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Runic rhyme, 

To the throbbing of the bells : — 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 

To the sobbing of the bells: — 
Keeping time, time, time, 

As he knells, knells, knells, 
In a happy Runic rhyme, 

To the rolling of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells : — 

To the tolling of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 

Among Poe's prose pieces is one on The Rationale of Verse, that deserves particular study. 
One of the curiosities of this essay is that part of it in which he describes minutely the pro- 
cess o^ his own mind in the creation of The Raven. 



Halleck. 

Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1795-1867, wrote comparatively little, but that 
little is of such extraordinary excellence as to have made it a matter of 
general regret that the author produced no more. His Marco Bozzaris is 
probably the best war lyric in the language. 

Halleck does not seem to have enjoyed a liberal education. He was clerk in a banking- 
house, and afterwards confidential adviser to John Jacob Astor. In 1819 he was associated 
with Joseph Rodman Drake in composing the Croaker Papers, published in the Evening 
Post. In 1821 he published " Fanny," a satire upon the literature and politics of the day. 
In 1822 and 1823 he travelled in Europe, and in 1827 published a small volume containing 
the poems on Burns, Alnwick Castle, Marco Bozzaris and a few others, in aU 32 pieces. 
After that nothing further appeared from his pen. 

"The poems of Fitz-Greene Halleck, although limited in quantity, are perhaps the best 
known and most cherished, especially in the latitude of New York, of all American verses. 
. . . The school-boy and the old Knickerbocker both know them by heart. In his serious 
poems he belongs to the same school as Campbell ; and in his lighter pieces reminds us of 
Beppo and the best parts of Don Juan. Fanny, conceived in the latter vein, has the point 
of a fine local satire gracefully executed. Bums, and the lines on the death of Drake, have 
the beautiful impress! veness of the highest elegiac verse. Marco Bozzaris is perhaps the 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 145 

best martial lyric in the language; Red Jacket tbe most effective Indian portrait ; and 
Twilight an apt piece of conteniphative verse ; while Alnwick Castle combines his grave and 
gay style with inimitable art and admirable effect." — Tuckerman. 

MARCO BOZZARIS. 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knees in suppliance bent. 

Should tremble at his power: 
In dreams, through camp and court, ho bore 
The trophies of a conqueror; 

In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet-ring: 
Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king; 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden's garden-bird. 

At midnight, in the forest shades, 

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band. 
True as the steel of their tried blades. 

Heroes in heart and hand. 
There had the Persian's thousands stood. 
There had the glad earth drunk their blood 

On old Plataea's day ; 
And now there breathed that haunted air 
The sons of sires who conquered there. 
With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far, as they. 

An hour passed on — the Turk awoke; " 

That bright dream was his last ; 
He woke — to hear his sentries shriek, 
"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek 1" 
He woke — to die midst flame, and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band: 
"Strike — till the last armed foe expires; 
Strike — for your altars and your fires; 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires ; 

God — and your native land!" 

They fought — like brave men, long and well; 

They piled that ground with Moslem slain; 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile when rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won: 
Then saw in death his eyelids close) 
Calmly, as to a night's repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 
13 K 



146 AMERICAN LITERATUBE, 



Come to the bridal chamber, Death I 

Come to the mother's, when she feels, 
For the first time, her first-bom's breath; 

Come when the blessed s^s 
That close the pestilence are broke. 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
Come in consumption's ghasfly form. 
The earthquake shock, the ocean-storm. 
Come when the heart beats high and warm. 

With banquet-song, and dance and wine ; 
And thou art terrible — the tear, 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier. 
And all we know, or dream, or fear 

Of agony, are thine. 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for the free, 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word; 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be. 
Come, when his task of fame is wrought — 
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought — 

Come in her crowning hour — and there 
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light 
To him is welcome as the sight 

Of sky and stars to prisoned men : 
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand 
Of brother in a foreign land ; 
Thy summons welcome as the cry 
That told the Indian isles were nigh 

To the world-seeking Genoese, 
When the land-wind, from woods of palm. 
And orange-groves, and fields of balm, 

Blew o'er the Haytian seas. 

Bozzaris! with the storied brave 
Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 

Best thee — there is no prouder grave, 
Even in her own proud clime. 

She wore no funeral weeds for thee. 
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume. 

Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, 

In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, 
.Q'he heartless luxury of the tomb: 

But she remembers thee as one 

Long loved, and for a season gone ; 

For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed. 

Her marble wrought, her music breathed ; 

For thee she rings the birthday bells; 

Of thee her babe's first lisping tells ; 

For thine her evening prayer is said 

At palace couch, and cottage bed ; 

Her soldier, closing with the foe, 

Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 147 

His plighted maiden, when she fears 
For him, the joy of her young years, 
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears : 

And she, the mother of thy boys, 
Though in her eye and faded cheek 
Is read the grief she will not speak, 

The memory of her buried joys. 
And even she who gave thee birth, 
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth. 

Talk of thy doom without a sigh: 
For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, 
One of the few, the immortal names, 

That were not born to die. 

The stanzas of Halleck on the death of his friend, J. Rodman Drake, have already been 
given in connection with the notice of that writer. 



Richard Henry Dana. 

KiCHAjRD Henry Dana, 1787 , although living to a good old age, 

achieved his principal distinction in letters more than half a century ago. 
His chief poem is The Buccaneer. 

Mr. Dana is a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the family that has 
given so many distinguished persons to the learned profession in that State. He began 
public life as a lawyer, but his health not being adequate to the labors of the profession, 
he adopted that of literature. He was associated for a time with Edward T. Channing in edit- 
ing the North American Review, and wrote some valuable articles for it. His chief separate 
publications are The Buccaneer, a poem ; The Dying Raven; and Tom Thornton, a novel. 
He gave also a course of ten Lectures on Shakespeare, which were received with great en- 
thusiasm. 

Mr. Dana is a thoughtful writer, and he requires too much thought on the part of the 
reader, to be in the ordinary sense popular. His poetry especially must be studied before it 
can be enjoyed. Two stanzas are given from Daybreak: 

DAYBREAK. 

Now, brighter than the host that all night long, 
In fiery armor, far up in the sky 

Stood watch, thou comest to wait the morning's song, 
Thou comest to tell me day again is nigh, 
Star of the dawning ! Cheerful is thine eye ; 
And yet in the broad day it must grow dim. 
Thou seem'st to look on me, as asking why 
My mourning eyes with silent tears do swim ; 
Thou bid'st me turn to God, and seek my rest in Him. 

How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft 
Shot 'thwart the earth ! In crown of living fire 
Up comes the day! as if they conscious quaflf'd — 
The sunny flood, hill, forest, city spire 



148 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Laugh in the wakening light — Go, vain desire! 
The dusky lights are gone ; go thou thy way ! 
And pining discontent, like them, expire! 
Be call'd my chamber, Peace, when ends the day; 
And let me with the dawn, like Pilgrim, sing and pray. 

Mr. Dana is known chiefly as a poet. He has written, however, most admirably in prose. 
In our judgment, indeed, his prose is much superior to his verse. An extract is given from 
his Lectures on Shakespeare, which were among his latest contributions to literature. 

EDMUND KEAN'S LEAR. 

It has been so common a saying, that Lear is the most difficult of characters to personate, 
that we had taken it for granted no man could play it so as to satisfy us. Perhaps it is the 
hardest to represent. Yet the part which has generally been supposed the most difficult, the 
insanity of Lear, is scarcely more so than that of the choleric old king. Inefficient rage is 
almost always ridiculous ; and an old man, with a broken-down body and a mind falling in 
pieces from the violence of its uncontrolled passions, is in constant danger of exciting, along 
with our pity, a feeling of contempt. It is a chance matter to which we may be most moved, 
and this it is which makes the opening of Lear so difficult. 

"We may as well notice here the objection which some make to the abrupt violence with 
which Kean begins in Lear. If this be a fault, it is Shakespeare, and not Kean, who is to 
blame ; for, no doubt, he has conceived it according to his author. Perhaps, however, the 
mistake lies in this case, where it does in most others, with those who put themselves into 
the seat of judgment to pass upon great men. 

In most instances, Shakespeare has given us the gradual growth of passion, with such 
little accompaniments as agree with it, and go to make up the whole man. In Lear, his 
object being to represent the beginning and course of insanity, he has properly enough gone 
but a little back of it, and introduced to us an old man of good feelings enough, but one who 
had lived without any true principle of conduct and whose unruled passions had grown 
strong with age, and were ready, upon a disappointment, to make shipwreck of an intellect 
never strong. To bring this about, he begins with an abruptness rather unusual ; and the 
old king rushes in before us, with his passions at their height, and tearing him like fiends. 

Kean gives this as soon as the fitting occasion offers itself. Had he put more of melan- 
choly and depression, and less of rage into the character, we should have been much puzzled 
at his so suddenly going mad. It would have required the change to have been slower ; and 
besides, his insanity must have been of another kind. It must have been monotonous and 
complaining instead of continually varying; at one time full of grief, at another playful, and 
then wild as the winds that roared about him. and fiery and sharp as the lightuing that shot 
bj"^ him. The truth with which he conceived this was not finer than his execution of it. Not 
for a moment, in his utmost violence, did he suffer the imbecility of the old mau's anger to 
touch upon the ludicrous, when nothing but the justest conception and feeling of the char- 
acter could have saved him from it. 

It has been said that Lear is a study for one who would make himself acquainted with the 
workings of an insane mind. And it is hardly less true, that the acting of Kean was an 
embodying of these workings. His eye, when his senses are first forsaking him, giving an 
inquiring look at what he saw, as if all before him was undergoing a strange and bewilder- 
ing change which confused his brain, — the wandering, lost motions of his hands, which 
seemed feeling for something familiar to them, on which they might take hold and be assured 
of a safe realitj', — the under monotone of his voice, as if he was questioning his own being, 
and what surrounded him, — the continuous, but slight, oscillating motion of the body, — 
all these expressed, with fearful truth, the bewildered state of a mind fast unsettling, and 
making vain and weak efi"orts to find its way back to its wonted reason. There was a child- 
ish, feeble gladness in the eye, and a half-piteous smile about the mouth, at times, which one 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 149 

could scarce look upon without tears. As the derangement increased upon him, his eye lost 
its notice of objects about him, wandering over things as if he saw them not, and fastening 
upon the creatures of his crazed brain. The helpless and delighted fondness with which he 
clings to Edgar as an insane brother, is another instance of the justness of Kean's concep- 
tions. Nor does he lose the air of insanity even in the fine moralizing parts, and where he 
inveighs against the corruptions of the world : there is a madness even in his reason. 

The violent and immediate changes of the passions in Lear, so difficult to manage withoat 
jarring upon us, are given by Kean with a spirit and with a fitness to nature Avhich we had 
hardly thought possible. These are equally well done both before and after the loss of reason. 
The most diflScult scene in this respect, is the last interview between Lear and his daughters, 
Goneriland Regan, — (and how wonderfully does Kean carry it through!) — the scene which 
ends with the horrid shout and cry with which he runs out mad from their presence, as if 
his very brain had taken fire. 

The last scene which we are allowed to have of Shakespeare's Lear, for the simply pathetic, 
was played by Kean with unmatched power. We sink down helpless under the oppressive 
grief. It lies like a dead ^yeight upon our hearts. We are denied even the relief of tears; 
and are thankful for the shudder that seizes us when he kneels to his daughter in the de- 
ploring weakness of his crazed grief. 

It is lamentable that Kean should not be allowed to show his unequalled powers in the 
last scene of Lear, as Shakespeare wrote it ; and that this mighty work of genius should be 
profaned by the miserable, mawkish sort of by-play of Edgar's and Cordelia's loves : nothing 
can surpass the impertinence of the man who made the change, but the folly of those who 
sanctioned it. 

Pierpont. 

John Pierpont, 1785-1866, published a volume of sacred verse, called 
Airs of Palestine ; also, a large number of sbort domestic lyrics whicb bad 
great popularity. 

Pierpont was a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and a graduate of Tale, in the class of 
1804. After being for some time tutor in the family of Col. William Allston of South Caro- 
lina, he studied and began to practise law, but gave it up for merchandise, and finally, in 
1816, entered the theological school at Harvard, and prepared himself for the ministry in the 
Unitarian Church. He preached successively in Boston, in Troy, N. Y., and in Medford, 
Massachusetts, and he travelled over various parts of Europe and Asia. Besides writing 
his poems, Pierpont compiled a series of Readers which had a good run. 

PASSING AWAY. 

Was it the chime of a tiny bell, 

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear, — 
Like the silvery tones of a fairj-'s shell 

That the winds on the beach, so mellow and clear, 
WTien the winds and the waves lie together asleep, 
And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, 
She dispensing her silvery light. 
And he, his notes as silvery quite, 
While the boatman listens and ships his oar. 
To catch the music that comes from the shore? — 

Hark I the notes, on my ear that play, 

Are set to words: — as they float, they say, 
" Passing away ! passing away ! " 

13* 



150 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

But no; it was not a fairy's shell, 

Blown on the beach, so mellow and clear; 
Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell, 
Striking the hour, that fill'd my ear, 
As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime 
That told of the flow of the stream of time, 
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung, 
And a plump little girl, for a pendulum swung; 
(As you 've sometimes seen, in a little ring 
^ That hangs in his cage, a Canary bird swing ;) 

And she held in her bosom a budding bouquet, 
And as she enjoy'd it, she seem'd to say, 
"Passing away! passing away!" 

0, how bright were the wheels, that told 

Of the lapse of time, as they moved round slow I 
And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold. 

Seemed to point to the girl below. 
And lo! she had changed! — in a few short hours 
Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers, 
That she held in her outstretched hands and flung 
This way and that, as she dancing swung 
In the fulness of grace and womanly pride, 
That told me she soon was to be a bride; — 
Yet then, when expecting her happiest day. 
In the same sweet voice I heard her say, 
"Passing away! passing away!" 

While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade 
Of thought, or care, stole softly over. 

Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made, 
Looking down on a field of blossoming clover, 

The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush 

Had something lost of its brilliant blush; 

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels. 
That marched so calmly round above her. 

Was a little dimmed, — as when evening steals 
Upon noon's hot face: — Yet one couldn't but love her, 

For she look'd like a mother, whose first babe lay 
Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day ; — 
And she seemed, in the same silver tone to say, 
"Passing away! passing away!" 

While yet I looked, what a change there came ! 

Her eye was quenched and her cheek was wan: 
Stooping and staffed was her withered frame, 

Yet, just as busily swung she on; 
The garland beneath her had fallen to dust; 
The wheels above her were eaten with rust; 
The hands that over the dial swept, 
Grew crooked and tarnished, but on they kept, 
And still there came that silver tone 
From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone,— 

(Let me never forget till my dying day 

The tone or the burden of her lay,) — 
" Passing away I passing away I " 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 151 



Percival. 

James Gates Perciyal, 1795-1856, was once in high repute as a poet. 
He published three volumes, under the title of Clio, containing a miscel- 
lany of prose and poetry. 

Perciyal was a native of Ck)nnecticnt, aod a gradaate of Yale College. His life was passed 
in devotion alternately to letters and to science. He published Geological Surveys of Con- 
necticut and Wisconsin, and translated Malte Brun's Greography. He was familiar with 
Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, and nearly all tbe languages of modern Europe. One of his hobbies 
consisted in imitating foreign metres. His poems were highly admired thirty or forty years 
ago, but, like those of Hillhouse, are now little read. They were first published, collectively, 
in 1859. In common with that of so many of his contemporaries, much of Percival's verse is 
crude and extravagant. He preferred the bubble and flash of momeataxy uospiratioa to tlia 
severer but more enduring labor of correction and r^ection. 

TO SENECA LAKE, 
On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 

The Nvild swan spreads her snowy saul. 
And round his breast the ripples break. 

As down he bears before the gale. 

On thy fair bosom, waveless stream ! 

The dipping peuidle echoes far, 
And flashes in the moonlight gleam. 

And bright .reflects the polar star. 

The waves along thy pebbly sbore. 
As blows the north- wind heave their foam; 

And curl around the dashing oar. 
As late the boatman hies Mm home. 

How sweet, at set of sun, to Tiew 

Thy golden mirror spreading wide, 
And see the mist of mantling blue 

Float round the distant mountain's side. 

At midnight hour, as shines the moon, 

A sheet of silver spreads below. 
And swift she cuts, at highest noon. 

Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. 

On thy fair bosom, silver lake ! 

0! I could ever sweep the oar. 
When early birds at morning wake. 

And evening tells us toil is o'er, 

John Howard Payne. 

John Howard Payne, 1792-1852, was the author of several dramatic 
works, which met with good success, but is chiefly known by his song of 
Home, Sweet Home. 

Payne was a native of New York. He became conspicuous very early in life as a writ43r 



152 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and an actor, appearing as Tonng Norval -when only sixteen. He is the anthor of several 
plays, Brutus, Virginius, and Charles II., and he translated many others from the French. He 
engaged in various magazine enterprises in England and in the United States, and v^as, at 
the time of his death. United States Consul at Tunis. To the general public, hoM ever, Payne 
is known almost exclusively by the song Home, Sweet Home, inserted by him in one of his 
plays. This song, it is needless to say, has become one of the treasures of the Englich lan- 
guage. It brought its author both fame and a considerable share of fortune. 

HOME, S^EET H03IE. 
'Mid pleasures and palaces though -we may roam, 
^ Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; 

A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there. 
Which, go through the world, you '11 not meet elsewhere. 

An exile from home, pleasure dazzles in vain, 
Ah! give me my lowly thatched cottage again; 
The birds singing sweetly, that came to my call — 
Give me them, aird that peace of mind, dearer than all. 
Home, home, 
Sweet home I 
There's no place like home — 
There's noplace like home. 

Charles Sprague. 

Chaeles Sprague, 1791 , is the author of a number of short poems 

which have been very popular. His Shakespeare Ode is the one most 
highly prized, but none is so often quoted as The Family Meeting. 

Mr. Sprague is a native of Boston. He left school at an early age to enter into business. 
For a long time he was cashier of the Globe Bank in his native city. He has scarcely trav- 
eled beyond the immediate vicinity of Boston, and has devoted all his leisure time to the 
study of English authors. His practical familiarity with the English poets is remarkable. 
His Ode to Shakespeare, delivered in 1823, is, according to Griswold," one of the most vigor- 
ous and beautiful lyrics in the language." His long Phi Beta Kappa poem on Curiosity has 
had the donbtful honor of being plagiarized entire, in Calcutta, as the work of a British 
oflBcer. Among his other, shorter poems, The Family Meeting, I See Thee Still, The Winged 
Worshippers, etc., are also much admired. 

THE FAMILY MEETING. 

We are all here! 

Father, Mother, 

Sister, Brother, 
All who hold each other dear. 
Each chair is filled — we're all at home; 
To-night let no cold stranger come: 
It is not often thus around 
Our old familiar hearth we're found: 
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot; 
For once be every care forgot; 
Let gentle Peace assert her power. 
And kind affection rule the hour; 

We're all — all here. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 163 



We're not all here ! 
Some are away — the aead ones dear, 
Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth, 
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth. 
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand. 
Looked in and thinned our little band: 
Some like a night-flash passed away. 
And some sank, lingering, day by day ; 
The quiet graveyard — some lie there — 
And cruel Ocean has his share — 

We're not all here. 

We are all here ! 
Even they — the dead — though dead, so de 
Fond memory to her duty true, 
Brings back their faded forms to view. 
How life-like, through the mist of years. 
Each well-remembered face appears! 
We see them as in times long past; 
From each to each kind looks are cast; 
We hear their words, their smiles behold ; 
They're round us as they were of old — 

We are all here. 

We are all here I 

Father, Mother, 

Sister, Brother, 
You that I love with love so dear. 
This may not long of us be said; 
Soon must we join the gathered dead; 
And by the hearth we now sit round, 
Some other circle will be found. 
! then, that wisdom may we know, 
Which yields a life of peace below! 
So, in the world to follow this, 
May each repeat, in words of bliss, 

We're all — all herel 



SuMXER Lincoln Fairfield, 1803-1844, a native of Massachusetts, and for many years & 
resident of Philadelphia, was a poet of considerable reputation. He wrote: The Last Night 
of Pompeii ; The Sisters of Saint Clare ; Abaddon, The Spirit of Destruction ; The Heir of the 
World ; The Cities of the Plain. 

Mrs. Jane Fairfield, the widow of the foregoing, is a native of Railway, New Jersey. She 
wrote A Life of S. L. Fairfield. 

Miss Genevieve G. Fairfield, 1832 , is a daughter of S. L. and Mrs. J. Fairfield. She is 

a native of New York. She has written Genevra, or the History of a Portrait ; The Vice- 
President's Daughter; The Wife of Two Husbands; The Innkeeper's Daughter, etc. 

John H. Bryant, 1807 , a brother of William Cullen Bryant, went West in 1831, and 

settled in Bureau County, Hlinois, where he has been successful as a farmer, and has held 
several offices of public trust. He partakes to some extent of the poetic faculty of the older 
brother, and published, in 1855, a volume of Poems. 



154 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

McDonald Clarke, 1798-1842, had some temporary notoriety in New York as " The Mad 
Poet." He published Review of the Eve of Eternity and Other Poems ; The Gossip, or a 
Laugh with the Ladies, a Grin with the Gentlemen ; Afara, or the Belles of Broadway ; A 
Cross and a Coronet ; The Elixir of Moonshine, a Collection of Prose and Poetry, by the Mad 
Poet, etc., etc. 

"William D. Gallagher. 

William D. Gallagheb, 1808 , occupied, thirty years ago, a con- 
spicuous position in Western literature. He published three volumes of 
juvenile poems, under the name of Erato, and another volume consisting of 
pieces written in more mature life. He engaged actively also in general 
literature. 

Mr. Gallagher is a native of Philadelphia, though he emigrated at an early age to Cincin- 
nati, and is to be considered a Western man. He learned the trade of a printer, and he has 
been occupied most of his time in the life of a journalist, chiefly in Cincinnati. Besides the 
volume already named, he edited, in 1841, a volume of Selections from the Poetical Literature 
of the West. 

" The poems of Mr. Gallagher are numerous, various, and of very unequal merit. Some 
are exquisitely modulated, and in every respect finished with excellent judgment, while 
others are inharmonious, inelegant, and betray unmistakable signs of carelessness. His 
most unstudied performances, however, are apt to be forcible and picturesque, fragrant with 
the freshness of Western woods and fields, and instinct with the aspiring and determined 
life of the race of Western men. The poet of a new country is naturally of the poetry of 
progress ; his noblest theme is man, and his highest law, liberty." — Griswold. 

Mr. Gallagher, during a period of twenty years, from 1830 to 1850, did more perhaps than 
any one man towards the creation of a Western literature, and although the several literary 
enterprises in which he was engaged from time to time, as The Cincinnati Mirror, The 
Western Literary Journal, and The Hesperian, were all short-lived, and unsuccessful 
pecuniarily, they helped to create a taste for literature which has not died out, and which 
has borne ample fruit since. 

In 1850, Mr. Gallagher went to Washington to take oSice in the Treasury Department. 
On returning to the West, after an absence of three years, he did not renew his literary 
career, but went to farming, near Louisville, Kentucky. 

John Finlet, 1797 , was born at Brownsburg, Rockbridge County, Virginia. He went 

to a country school, and learned " to read, write, and cipher as far as the rule of three." 
He went West, and settled, first in Ohio, and finally in Richmond, Indiana. There he be- 
came a prominent citizen, and filled many public offices. He published many short poems 
which had a wide circulation. 

Rev. Christopher P. Cranch, 1813 , a native of Alexandria, Virginia, and a son of 

Judge Cranch, is a poet and a painter. He visited Italy in 1848, and after that resided for 
some time in Paris. He has published a volume of poems ; also, The Last of the Hugger- 
muggers, and Koboltozo. 

Charles E. Eastman, 1816 , is a native of Maine. He edited the Vermont Patriot, 

and published in 1848 a volume of Poems, descriptive of rural life in New England. 

Rev. John W. Brown, 1814-1849, was an Episcopal minister. He wrote Christmas Bells, 
a Tale of Holy Tide, and other Poems. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 155 

Rev. Charles W. Everest, , an Episcopal clergyman of Connecticut, has pub- 
lished The Vision of Death and Other Poems; The Poets of Connecticut; Bahylon, a poem ; 
The Hare Bell ; The Moss Rose ; The Memento ; The Snow Drop. 

Hexrt B. Hirst, 1813 , is a native of Philadelphia, and a lawyer by profession. Ho 

has given considerable attention to literary pursuits, and has published three volumes of 
poems : The Coming of the Mammoth ; Endymion, a Tale of Greece ; and the Penance of 
Roland. 



Hosmer. 

William Henry Cuyler Hosmer, 1814 , has published two 

volumes of poetry, relating chiefly to the legends of the North American 
Indians. 

Mr. Hosmer is a native of Avon, New York, and a graduate of Hobart College, Geneva. 
He engaged in the practice of law at Avon, and afterwards went to New York, where he 
held a position in the Custom-House. In early life he spent much time among the Indians, 
and most of his writings are on subjects connected with Indian traditions. The following 
are some of his publications: The Hall of Tecumseh ; Yonnondio, or the "Warriors of the 
Genesee ; Legends of the Senecas ; Indian Traditions and Songs ; The Pioneer of Western 
New York, etc. 

Some of his simpler and less ambitious poems, echoing the notes of the birds, or painting 
the varying phenomena of the months, have greater attractions to the ordinary reader than 
the i>oem8 relating to Indian life. Two stanzas are quoted from October : 

OCTOBER. 

Black walnuts, in low meadow ground, 

Are dropping now their dark green balls, 
And on the ridge, with rattling sound, 

The deep brown chestnut falls. 
When comes a day of sunshine mild, 
From childhood, nutting in the wild, 

Outbursts a shout of glee ; 
And high the pointed shells are piled 

Under the hickory tree. 

In piles around the cider-mill 

The parti-coloured apples shine. 
And busy hands the hopper fill, 

While foams the pumice fine — 
The cheese, with yellow straw between 
Full juicy layers, may be seen, 

And rills of amber hue 
Feed a vast tub, made tight and clean, 

While turns the groaning screw. 

George Lunt, 1807 , is a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and a graduate of 

Harvard. He is a lawyer by profession, settled in Boston, and was at one time United States 
District Attorney for that city. He has given considerable time to the profession of letters, 



156 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and has published several works, chiefly poetical : The Age of Gold and Other Poems ; 
Lyric Poems, Sonnets, and Miscellanies ; Eastford, a Novel ; Julia, a Poem. 

Isaac McClellan, 1810 , is a native of Portland, Maine, and a graduate of Bowdoin. 

After practising law for a few years in Boston, he embarked io agricultural pursuits. He 
gave some time also to literature : The Pall of the Indian, with Other Poems ; The Year 
and Other Poems ; Miscellaneous Poems ; Journal of a Residence in Scotland and of a Tour 
through England, Prance, etc. 

James Nack, 1807 , though deaf from an injury received in childhood, overcame the 

dlflSculties of his condition, and acquired some note as a poet. Several volumes of his have 
bfeen published : The Legend of the Rock and Other Poems ; Earl Rupert and Other Poems ; 
The Immortal, a Dramatic Romance, and other Poems ; Poems. 

Ret. Ralph Hott, 1810 , was born in the city of New York, where he has gained repu- 
tation both as a poet and as a Christian minister. He has published The Chant of Life and 
Other Poems ; Sketches of Life and Landscape. 

Mr. J. M. Legak£, of Charleston, South Carolina, a relative of the distinguished publicist, 
Hugh S. Legare, published in 1848 a volume, called Orta-Undis and Other Poems. The 
pieces show scholarship, a cultured ear, and delicacy of sentiment. 

CoATES KixNET, 1826 , was bom on Crooked Lake, near Penn Yan, New York. At the 

age of fourteen he went West, ready for whatever might turn up. He educated himself, 
taught school, edited newspapers, and finally practised law. He has published a volume, 
Keuka, an American Legend, and Other Poems, besides contributing to magazines. One of 
his minor poems, Rain on the Roof, has been very popular, and well deserves the favor it 
has received. 

RAIN ON THE ROOF. 

When the humid shadows hover 

Over all the starry spheres. 
And the melancholy darkness 

Gently weeps in rainy tears, 
What a joy to press the pillow 

Of a cottage-chamber bed. 
And to listen to the patter 

Of the soft rain overhead 1 

Every tinkle on the shingles 

Has an echo in the heart; 
And a thousand dreamy fancies 

Into busy being start, 
And a thousand recollections 

Weave their bright hues into woof^ 
As I listen to the patter 

Of the rain upon the roof. 

Now in fancy comes my mother, 

As she used to, years agone, 
To survey her darling dreamers, 

Ere she left them till the dawn; 
Oh! I see her bending o'er me, 

As I list to this refrain 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 157 

TThich is played upon the shingles 
By the patter of the rain. 

Then my little seraph sister, 

With her wings and waving hair, 
And her bright-eyed cherub brother — 

A serene, angelic pair ! — 
Glide around my wakeful pillow, 

With their praise or mild reproof, 
As I listen to the murmur 

Of the soft rain on the roof. 

And another comes to thrill me 

With her eye's delicious blue; 
And forget I, gazing on her, 

That her heart was all untrue: 
I remember but to love her 

With a rapture kin to pain, 
And my heart's quick pulses vibrate 

To the patter of the rain. 

There is naught in Art's bravuras. 

That can work vdth such a spell 
In the spirit's pure, deep fountains, 

Whence the holy passions well, 
As that melody of Nature, 

That subdued, subduing strain 
Which is played upon the shingles 

By the patter of the rain. 

Thomas H. Stockton, D.D., 1808-1868, a very eloquent Methodist preacher, was bom in 
Mount Holly, New Jersey. He was at different times Chaplain to the United States Senate, 
and to the House of Representatives, and had several important pastoral charges, chiefly in 
Baltimore and Philadelphia. Dr. Stockton published A A^olume of Sermons ; 2 vols, of 
Poems, one of them containing the ballad, Stand up for Jesus, in commemoration of Dudley 
A. Tyng; and Bible Tracts. 

Thomas Ward, M.D., 1807 , was bom in Newark, New Jersey, and educated at Prince- 
ton. He studied medicine at the Rutgers Medical School of New York, and afterwards in 
Europe. After practising for two or three years, having ample private means, he retired 
from the profession, occupying thenceforward some portion of his leisure hours in literary 
pursuits. He published in 1842 a volume of poems, entitled Passaic, a Group of Poems 
Touching that River, with Other Musings. He wrote under the name of Flaccus. 

James W. Ward, 1818 , is a native of Newark, New Jersey, the son of a bookseller of 

that city. He was educated in the Boston High-School, and going to Cincinnati, became a 
favorite pupil in chemistry of Professor Locke. Mr. Ward was one of the band of young 
men who thirty years ago gave so much of a literary character to Cincinnati. He wrote for 
The Mirror and The Hesperian, in 1838 published at Cleveland Yorick and Other Poems, the 
first volume of poems published in Northern Ohio. Among his poetical effusions was a 
very successful and amusing parody on Hiawatha, called Higher Water, describing a flood 
in the Ohio. 

14 



158 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Mrs. Osgood. 

Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, 1812-1850, holds deservedly a high 
place among the poetesses of America. She wrote no one great poem, but 
she was for nearly twenty years an industrious contributor to current liter- 
ature, her productions steadily improving to the last. Her collected poems, 
all short, fill a large octavo, and are a valuable addition to the literature 
of the period in which they were produced. 

Mrs. Osgood was a native of Boston, the daughter of Mr. Joseph Locke, a merchant of that 
city. Her early life was passed chiefly in the village of Hingham. She gave very early 
indications of poetical talent. Her abilities in this respect were first recognized by Mrs. 
Lydia M. Child, who was then editing the Juvenile Miscellany. Miss Locke became a regular 
contributor to this work, and subsequently to other works, under the name of " Florence." 
She was married in 1834 to Mr. Osgood the painter, and accompanied him soon after to 
London. They remained in the great metropolis for four years, Mr. Osgood acquiring repu- 
tation as an artist, and Mrs. Osgood as a writer. After their return to the United States, they 
resided chiefly in New York, although Mr. Osgood was occasionally absent on professional 
tours to different parts of the country. 

In 1841, Mrs. Osgood edited an Annual, " The Flowers of Poetry, and the Poetry of Flowers," 
and in 1847, " The Floral Offering." She published a collection of her poems in 1846, and in 
1850 a complete collection of her poetical works in one large octavo volume. This work, 
which was issued in sumptuous style, contained, of her poems up to that date, all that ' 
she thought worthy of preservation. 

Her prose contributions to the magazines were numerous, and would make, if collected, 
one or two volumes. Though prose in name, they are all essentially poetical, far more so 
than much that goes under the name of poetry. Her whole life, indeed, as it has been well 
remarked, was a continual poem. " Not to write poetry — not to think it — act it — dream 
it — and be it, — was entirely out of her power." 

" Of none of our writers has the excellence been more steadily progressive. Every month 
her powers have seemed to expand and her sympathies to deepen. With an ear delicately 
susceptible to the harmony of language, and a light and pleasing fancy, she always wrote 
musically and often with elegance ; but her later poems are marked by a freedom of style, a 
tenderness of feeling, and a wisdom of apprehension, and are informed with a grace so unde- 
finable but so pervading and attractive, that the consideration to which she is entitled is 
altogether different in kind, as well as in degree, from that which was awarded to the playful, 
piquant, and capricious improvisatrice of former years." — Griawold. 

TO MY PEN. 
Dost know, my little vagrant pen. 

That wanderest lightly down the paper, 
"Without a thought how critic men 

May carp at every careless caper ? 

Dost know, twice twenty thousand eyes, 

If publishers report thee truly. 
Each month may mark the sportive lies 

That track, oh shame ! thy steps unruly ? 

Now list to me, my fairy pen. 

And con the lessons gravely over; 
Be never wild or false again, 

But "mind your Ps and Qs," you rover I 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 159 

While tripping gayly to and fro, 

Let not a thought escape you lightly, 
But challenge all before they go, 

And see them fairly robed and rightly. 

You know that words but dress the frame, 

And thought 's the soul of verse, my fairy : 
So drape not spirits dull and tame 

In gorgeous robes or garments airy. 

I would not have my pen pursue 

The "beaten track" — a slave forever; 
No! roam as thou wert wont to do 

In author-land, by rock and river. 

Be like the sunbeam's burning wing, 

Be like the wand in Cinderella — 
And if you touch a common thing, 

Ah, change to gold the pumpkin yellow J 

May grace come fluttering round your steps. 

Whene'er, my birds, you light on paper. 
And music murmur at your lips. 

And truth restrain each truant cai>er. 

Let hope paint pictures in your way. 

And love his seraph-lesson teach you ; 
And rather calm with reason stay. 

Than dance with folly — I beseech you I 

In faith's pure fountain lave your wing, 

And quafif from feeling's glowing chalice; 
But touch not falsehood's fatal spring. 

And shun the poisoned weeds of malice. 

Firm be the web you lightly 'spin. 

From leaf to leaf, though frail in seeming. 
While Fancy's fairy dew-gems win 

The sunbeam Truth to keep them gleaming. 

And shrink not thou when tyrant wrong 

O'er humble suffering dares deride thee: 
With lightning step and clarion song. 

Go ! take the field, with heaven beside thee. 

Be tuned to tenderest music when 

Of sin and shame thou 'rt sadly singing ; 
But diamond be thy point, my pen. 

When folly's bells are round thee ringing I 

And so, where'er you stay your flight. 

To plume your wing or dance your measure, 
May gems and flowers your pathway light. 

For those who track your tread, my treasure I 

But what is this? you've tripped about. 

While I the mentor grave was playing; 
And here you 've written boldly out 

The very words that I was saying I 



160 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And here, as usual, on you've flown 
From right to left — flown fast and faster, 

Till even while you wrote it down, 
You've missed the task you ought to master. 

Hannah F. Gould. 

Hannah F. Gould, 1789-1865, wrote many charming pieces in verse, 
which were general favorites with the public, and some of which will prob- 
ably hold a permanent place in literature. She excelled in the quiet themes 
of home life, such as The Snow- Flake, and The Frost. 

Miss Gould was a native of Lancaster, Vermont, but removed early to Newburyport, Mas- 
sachusetts, and continued to reside there until her death. Her mother dying when Hannah 
was young, the latter led a quiet, secluded life, devoting herself mainly to the care of her 
father, to whom she was housekeeper, nurse, companion, and chief source of earthly hap- 
piness. 

Miss Gould began her literary career by contributing fugitive pieces to the periodicals, 
and had in this way already achieved considerable celebrity as early as 1830. A volume of 
her Poems appeared in 1832, another in 1836, and a third in 1841. A collection of prose 
pieces, called Gathered Leaves, was published in 1846; Diosma, or Poems selected and 
original, in 1850 ; and in the same year, The Youth's Coronal, a book of poems for children. 

THE SNOW-FLAKE. 
"Now, if I fall, will it be my lot 

To be cast in some lone and lowly spot, 
To melt, and to sink unseen, or forgot? 

And there will my course be ended?" 
'Twas thus a feathery Snow-flake said, 
As down through measureless space it strayed, 
Or as, half by dalliance, half afraid. 

It seemed in mid air suspended. 

" Oh, no ! " said the Earth, " thou shalt not lie 
Neglected and lone on my lap to die, 
Thou pure and delicate child of the sky ! 

For thou wilt be safe in my keeping. 
But then, I must give thee a lovelier form — 
Thou wilt not be a part of the wintry storm. 
But revive, when the sunbeams are yellow and warm, 

And the flowers from my bosom are peeping! 

" And then thou shalt have thy choice, to be 
Restored in the lily that decks the lea, 
In the jessamine bloom, the anemone. 

Or aught of thy spotless whiteness ; 
To melt, and be cast in a glittering bead 
With the pearls that the night scatters over the mead. 
In the cup where the bee and the fire-fly feed, 

Regaining thy dazzling brightness. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 161 

"Or •wouldst thou retrirn to a home in the skies, 
To shine in the Iris I'll let thee arise, 
And appear in the many and glorious dyes 

A pencil of sunbeams is blending ! 
But true, fair thing, as my name is Earth, 
I'll give thee a new and vernal birth, 
When thou shalt recover thy primal worth. 

And never regret descending ! " 

"Then I will drop," said the trusting Flake; 
"But, bear it in mind, that the choice I make 
Is not in the flowers nor the dew to wake; 

Nor the mists, that shall pass with the morning. 
For, things of thyself, they will die with thee ; 
But those that are lent from on high, like me, 
Must rise, and will live, from thy dust set free. 

To the regions above returning. 

" And if true to thy word and just thou art, 
Like the spirit that dwells in the holiest heart. 
Unsullied by thee, thou wilt let me depart, 

And return to my native heaven ; 
For I would be placed on the beautiful bow. 
From time to time in thy sight to glow; 
So thou mayest remember the Flake of Snow, 

By the promise that God hath given." 

Elizabeth Bogart. 

Elizabeth Bogaet, , wrote much for the literary magazines 

of the last generation, and was a general favorite with the public. Her 
pieces appeared under the name of Estelle. 

Miss Bogart was a native and for the most of her life a resident of New York. She was 
of Huguenot descent, the daughter of the Rev. David S. Bogart. She was at one lime well 
known to the reading public by her poetical contributions to the New York Mirror, and some 
of her pieces were much quoted. But it is now many years since she has written for the 
public, and her poems have never appeared in a collected form, so that in the crowd of 
younger competitors for distinction she is pretty much forgotten. But she wrote some things 
well worthy of living, and she was a great favorite with a former generation. Her first pieces 
appeared in 1825. Among them may be named I Knew Men Kept no Promises, He Came 
too Late, Give Me back My Letters, An Autumn View from My Window, 

GIVE ME BACK MY LETTERS. 
Give back thy letters? — take them — there, 

I 've done with them, and thee ! 
They 're hollow as the empty air, 

And worthless, now, to me. 

I prized them only when I deemed 

Thy heart was in each line ; 
I worshipped truth, and never dreamed 
f I bowed at fjilsehood's shrine. 

14* L 



162 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Like roses scattered on the wind. 
The poisoned draught to hide, 

So did each written page of thine 
Conceal deception's tide. 

Then take thy letters back again, 
And read them if thou wilt, 

And let them shame the treacherous pen. 
Which love's felse fabric built. 

Take back the memory of the past! 

I have abolished all — 
'Tis sealed within thy packet, fast, 

That thou may'st it recall. 

I cast it from me, and am free. 
For now, I know thee not! 

Unmasked, I find thou art not ho 
Whom I had ne'er forgot. 

The semblance oniy thou dost wear, 

The inteUectual face. 
From Nature stolen, or elsewhere 

It must have found its place. 

And thou dost ask thy letters, now. 

The missives of thy art! 
A scornfal smile is on my brow, 

And lightness in my heart- 
Take back — take back thy written words 1 

They have no power for me! 
Troth only has the strength that girds 

A lasting memory. 



Anna Drinker— ''Edith May." 

Anna Deinkeb, -, better known by her assumed name of 

" Edith May," contributed, about twenty-five years ago, a number of poems 
of extraordinary merit to Sartain's Magazine and other periodicals. 

Miss Drinker is a native of Philadelphia, though she has resided chiefly at Montrose, Pa. 
Her poetical contributions to Willis's Home Journal and to Sartain's Magazine, about 1848- 
50, attracted much attention by their beauty and finish, and a handsome edition of her 
Poetical Works, in 4to, was published in 1851. She published afterwardfl Tales and Poems 
for Children. 

THEODORA. 

Since we knew her for an angel. 

Bearing meek the common load, 
Let us call her Theodora, 

Gift of God! • 



i 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 163 

still so young, that every sximmer 

Is a rose upon her brow, 
AH her days are blooms detaching 
From a bough. 

She is very slight, and graceful 

As the bending of a fern; 
As the marble figure drooping 
O'er an urn. 

In her eyes are tranquil shadows 
Lofty thoughts alone can make, 
Like the darkness thrown by mountains 
O'er a lake. 

If you speak, the slow retnming 

Of her spirit from afar 
To their depths, is like the advent 
Of a star. 

No one marvels at her beauty; 
Blended with a perfect whole, 
Beauty seems the just expression 
Of her soul. 

For her lightest word, or fancy, 

Unarrayed for human ear. 
Might be echoed by an angel 
Watching near. 

Be a theme however homely, 

It is glorious at her will. 
Like a common air transfigured 
By a master's skill. 

And her words, severely simple, 
As a drapery Grecian-wrought, 
Show the clear, symmetric outline 
Of her thought. 

To disguise her limbs with grandeur 

Would seem strange as to dispose 
Gold and velvet round a statue's 
Pale repose. 

But a robe of simplest texture 

Should be gathered to her throat, 
And her rippled locks, part braided. 
Part afloat. 

While a pendent spray of lilies 

In their folds should be arrayed. 
Or a waxen white camelia 

Lamp their shade. 



164 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



UNREST. 

Rest for a while ! I 'm tempest-tossed to-day. 

Bar out the sunshine. Let importunate, life, 

Beating forever with impatient hand 

My soul's closed portals, only rouse within 

Dim, dreary echoes. In a forest calm 

Builds Sleep, the white dove. As a bird she rides 

The lulled waves of the soul. To-day my thoughts 

Hunt me like hounds ; the very prayer for peace 

Scares peace away ; my senses, wide awake, 

Watch for the touch that thrills them; every sound 

Falls through the listening air unscabbarded ; 

And if sleep comes, 't is but a transient dream 

That flits betwixt me and the light of life, 

Alighting never. 

Oh, sweet chrism of God ! 
Baptismal font from whence our bodies rise 
Regenerate, cool wayside shadow flung 
Over the paths of toil, I am athirst ; 
Strengthen me with thy strength! 

Lo! where she stands, 
Sleep, the beloved, and mocks me with her beauty! 
Her hands lie clasped around a lamp alight, 
Burning faint incense ; from her zone unbound 
Dark robes trail silently; the poppies wreathed 
Above her temples, bursting, over-ripe, 
Drop with her motion. She is fair and calm, 
But dreams, like cherubs, with bright restless winga, 
Cling to her sweeping robes. Let her draw near, 
Laying her dewy lips upon my brow, 
Twining me with soft movement in her arms. 
And then shall pass a fluttering through my sense, 
Leaf-like vibration, and my soul, as one 
Who drifts out seaward, seeing the dim shore 
Receding slow, hearing the voice of waves 
Call to him fainter, shall float guideless on 
Rocked into slumber; dream eff^acing dream, 
Thought widening around thought, till all grows vague. 

Mrs. Catherine H. (Waterman) Esling, 1812 , is a native and resident of Philadel- 
phia. She published in 1850 The Broken Bracelet and Other Poems. " Her poems are the 
expressions of a true woman's soul ; she excels in portraying feeling, and in expressing the 
warm and tender emotions of one to whom home has ever been the loadstone of the soul." — 
Mrs. Hale's Woman''s Record. 

Mart Ann Hanmer Dodd, 1813 — , a native and a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, 
published in 1843 a volume of poems. 

Mrs. Louisa Jane Hall, 1802 , a daughter of Dr. James Park, of Newburyport, Massa- 
chusetts, where she was born, and the wife of Rev. Edward B. Hall, a Unitarian minister of 
Providence, Rhode Island, is the author of the following works : Miriam, a Dramatic 
Poem, illustrative of the early conflicts of the Christian church ; Joanna of Naples, an 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 165 

historical tale ; and A Life of Elizabeth Carter. Her Miriam, at the time of its publication, 
received very warm commendation. 

Mrs. Jane L. Gray, 1800 , was born at Castle Blayney, Ireland, and was daughter of 

William Lewers, of that place. She became the wife of the Rev. James Gray, D.D., and 
came with him to Easton, Pennsylvania, where she continued to live, and where all her 
poems were written. She has written Sabbath Reminiscences, Two Hundred Years Ago, 
and many others. She is one of the sweetest singers among our second-class lyrists. 

Amelia Welby. 

Mrs. Amelia Welby, 1821-1852, of Louisville, Kentuckv, was for 
many years " the bright, particular star" in the western horizon. 

Mrs. Welby, whose maiden name was Coppuck, was born at St. Michael's, Maryland. 
Her father removed in 1835 to Louisville, Kentucky, where in 1838 she was married to Mr. 
Welby, a merchant of that city. She began at an early age to write for the Louisville 
Journal under the signature of " Amelia," and acquired considerable reputation as a poet. 
Edgar A. Poe praised her in very high terms. " She has nearly all the imagination of Maria 
del Occidente [Maria Brooks], with a more refined taste ; and nearly all the passion of Mrs. 
Norton, with a nicer ear and (what is surprising) equal art. Very few American poets are 
at all comparable with her in the true poetic qualities. As for our poetesses (an absurd but 
necessary word) few of them approach her." — Poe. A volume of Mrs. Welby's poems was 
published in Boston, in 1844, of Avhich four editions were published. An enlarged and illus- 
trated edition appeared in New York in 1850. 

Mrs. Niclnols. 

Mrs. Rebecca S. Nichols was one of the writers who gave lustre to 
Cincinnati thirty years ago. 

Mrs. Nichols was born at Greenwich, New Jersey, the daughter of Dr. E. B. Reed. Dr. 
Reed removed to the West while his daughter was yet a child, and that region became thence- 
forth her home. She was married in 1838 to Mr. Willard Nichols, in Louisville, Kentucky. 
She and her husband lived for a time in St. Louis, and then settled in Cincinnati. Her first 
poems were published in the Louisville News Letter, and Louisville Journal. In 1844, she 
published a volume, Berenice, or The Curse of Minna, and Other Poems. In 1846, she under- 
took a literary periodical in Cincinnati, The Guest. She contributed also to Graham, and The 
Knickerbocker. Her most brilliant success was a series of papers in the Cincinnati Herald, 
under the name of Kate Cleveland. In 1851, an elegant volume of her later poems was pub- 
lished, Songs of the Heart and of the Hearth-Stone. 

Mrs. Gage. 

Mrs. Frances Dana Gage, 1808 , who is chiefly known as a 

public lecturer, has written some very clever poetry. 

Mrs. Gage was born at Marietta, Ohio, daughter of one of the original settlers of that place, 
Mr. Joseph Barker. She was married at the age of twenty to Mr. James L. Gage, of McCon- 
elsville, where she resided twenty-five years. In 1853 the family removed to St. Louis. In 
1859, Mrs. Gage visited the West Indies, and after her return home began her career as a 
public lecturer, in which she was very successful. She has published many fugitive poems 
remarkable for the vividness of their home pictures. 

Mart Elizabeth Lee, 1813-1849, was a native of Charleston, South Carolina. A volume 
of her Poems was published in 1851. She contributed to Graham's Magazine, Godey's Lady's 
Book, and other periodicals. Social Evenings, a volume of historical tales for youth, was 
published in the Massachusetts School History. 



166 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Shindler (late Mrs. Dana). 

Mrs. Mary S. B. SnEiTDLER, 1810 , better known to the reaxiing 

public as Mrs. Dana, is the author of numerous works, both prose and verse, 
chiefly the latter. The poems by which she first gained celebrity appeared 
in 1840, in a volume caUed The Southern Harp. 

Mrs. Shindler was bom in Beaufort, South Carolina. Her maiden name was Mary Stanley 
Bunce Palmer. She was the daughter of the Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer, D.D., who at the 
time of her birth was pastor of the Independent or Congregational church at Beaufort. In 
1814, the family removed to Charleston, Dr. Palmer having been called to a church in that 
city. Mrs. Shindler was educated chiefly by the Misses Ramsay of Charleston, daughters of 
the historian. In 1835, she became the wife of Mr. Charles E. Dana. The first years of 
their married life were passed in New York city. In 1838, they went out West, and settled 
in Bloomington, Iowa. But a fever then prevailing in that region cut off in the same week 
Mr. Bana and their only child. Mrs. Dana also was near to death, but recovering made 
her way back by slow and painful journeys to her parents and her old home in Carolina. 

The anguish of these domestic sorrows found voice in song, and thus originated her first 
and best volume. The Southern Harp. This was followed by The Northern Harp, The 
Parted Family and other Poems. She published also several other works : Charles Morton, 
or The Young Patriot; The Young Sailor; and Forecastle Tom. 

Mrs. Dana was bred a Calvinist. In 18J4, she began to entertain doubts on the doctrine 
of the Trinity, and finally went over to the Unitarians. In 1845. she published a volume, 
Letters to Relatives and Friends, stating the process through which her mind had passed. 

In 1848, she was married to Rev. Robert D. Shindler, a clergyman of the Episcopal 
Church ; and her views on the Trinity having again changed, she was received into the 
communion of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Shindler was for a time Professor in Shelby 
College, Kentucky, They are now living in Texas. 

PASSING UNDER THE ROD. 
I saw the young bride, in her beauty and pride, 

Bedeck'd in her snowy array; 
And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek. 

And the future looked blooming and gay: 
And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart 

At the shrine of idolatrous love, 
And she anchor'd her hopes to this perishing earth, 

By the chain which her tenderness wove. 
But I saw when those heart-strings were bleeding and torn. 

And the chain had been sever'd in two. 
She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief, 

And her bloom for the paleness of woe. 
But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart, 

And wiping the tears from her eyes. 
And he strengthen'd the chain he had broken in twain 

And fasten'd it firm to the skies! 
There had whispered a voice — 't was the voice of her God, 

"I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod/" 

I saw the young mother in tenderness bend 
O'er the couch of her slumbering boy, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 167 

And she kissed the soft lips as they murmur'd her name, 

While the dreamer lay smiling in joy. 
Oh, sweet as a rose-bud encircled with dew, 

When its fragrance is flung on the air, 
So fresh and so bright to that mother he seemed. 

As he lay in his innocence there. 
But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely form, 

Pale as marble, and silent, and cold. 
But paler and colder her beautiful boy, 

And the tale of her sorrow was told! 
But the Healer was there who had stricken her heart 

And taken her treasure away, 
To allure her to heaven he has placed it on high, 

And the mourner will sweetly obey. 
There had whispered a voice — 't was the voice of her God, 
"I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod!" 

I saw the fond brother, with glances of love. 

Gazing down on a gentle young girl. 
And she hung on his arm, and breathed soft in his ear 

As he played with each graceful curl. 
Oh, he loved the sweet tones of her sil/ery voice, 

Let her use it in sadness or glee ; 
And he'd clasp his brave arms round her delicate form, 

As she sat on her brother's knee. 
But I saw when he gazed on her death-stricken face. 

And she breathed not a word in his ear; 
And he cla.sped his brave arms round an icy cold form, 

And he moisten'd her cheek with a tear. 
But the Healer was there, and he said to him thus — 

"Grieve not for thy sister's short life," 
And he gave to his arms still another fair girl, 

And he made her his own cherished wife! 
There had whisper'd a voice — 't was the voice of his God, 
"I love thee — I love thee — pass under the rod!" 

I saw where a father and mother had leaned 

On the arms of a dear gifted son, 
And the star in the future grew bright to their gaze, 

As they saw the proud place he had won : 
And the fast-coming evening of life promised fair, 

And its pathway grew smooth to their feet. 
And the starlight of love glimmered bright at the end, 

And the whispers of fancy were sweet. 
But I saw when they stood, bending low o'er the grave, 

Where their heart's dearest hope had been laid, 
And the star had gone down in the darkness of night, 

And the joy from their bosoms had fled. 
But the Healer was there, and his arms were around. 

And he led them with tenderest care; 
And he showed them a star in a bright upper world, 

'Twas Iheir star shining brilliantly there I 
They had each heard a voice — 't was the voice of their God, 
"I love thee — I love thee — pane under tlie rod!" 



168 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

II. WRITERS OF NOVELS, TALES, ETC. 

Cooper. 

James Fenimoee Cooper, 1789-1851, was the first American novelist 
tliat gained a national reputation. He was also the first American writer 
that obtained general recognition in Europe, and until lately was the most 
widely known abroad of all Americans, excepting only Washington and 
Franklin. His tales of pioneer life threw a glamour over the American 
landscape, not unlike, and hardly inferior, to that which Scott had thrown 
over Scotland. His sea tales are still imequalled in their kind, on either 
side of the Atlantic. 

Cooper was born at Burlington, New Jersey, his ancestors having been among the early 
settlers of West Jersey. Cooper's father, however, bought extensive tracts of land in the 
interior of New York, where he founded Cooperstown, on Otsego lake, and with that place 
chiefly the author is connected. He entered Yale College in 1802, at the age of thirteen, 
and after remaining three years lett college without graduating, and entered the navy. He 
continued in the naval service for six years, and by his experience there acquired that 
familiarity with sea-life which was of so much value to him in a portion of his romances. 
At the end of the six years, he resigned from the navy, and married Miss De Lancey, a sister 
of Bishop De Lancey. 

Cooper's first venture in authorship was a novel, called Precaution, and its success was 
very moderate. His second work, The Spy, contained nearly all his strong characteristics, 
and was immediately successful. From that time onward, he continued to the end of life 
to pour forth novel after novel, with amazing fertility of invention. 

Cooper's strong point as a novelist is his power of description. His scenes stand before 
the eye with the most perfect and absolute distinctness. Another feature, equally marked, 
is his nationality — not so much the nationality of feeling, which often leads its posses- 
sor into saying what is absurd, but that which led him to write about the scenes and 
things that he was familiar with and had seen in his own land. American scenerj', manners, 
customs, and ideas, first stood forth in distinct relief in the pages of Cooper. He was 
equally happy in depicting sea-life, which never had a truer or more vivid painter than in 
the author of The Pilot. 

Cooper's novels number no less than thirty. They are divisible mainly into two classes, one 
consisting of sea-stories, of which The Pilot and The Red Rover are the most notable exam- 
ples, and the other called his Leather-Stocking tales, descriptive of pioneer life, and named 
from the hunter-hero, Leather-Stocking, who appears in several of them. Besides these, he 
wrote several novels on European subjects, and several also of a political character. The 
best example of the latter is Tlie Bravo, the scene of which is laid in the Gulf of Venice; 
the object of the story is to vindicate popular institutions in the eyes of Europe. Three 
others, Satanstoe, Chainbearer, and Red Skins, were in like manner meant to rouse the 
American people to the injustice and wickedness of the anti-rent agitation in the State 
of New York. 

The following is believed to be a complete list of his novels: Precaution, The Spy, The 
Pioneer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, The Deer-Slayer, The Pilot, 
The Red Rover, The Bravo, The Water- Witch, The Two Admirals, The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 
Homeward Bound, Home as Found, Headsman of Berne, Ileidenmauer, Mercedes of Castile, 
The Monikins, Wing and Wing, Wyandotte, Ned Myers, Ashore and Afloat, Miles Walling- 
ford, IsJete of the Gulf, Ways of the Hour, Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief, Satans- 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 169 

toe, Thfi Chainbearer, The Red Skins. The ten first named are the ones most known, and 
except Precaution are by far the best. 

After publishing some of his most celebrated novels, Mr. Cooper went abroad, where he 
was most kindly received. He spent several years in Europe, chiefly in France, and while 
there continued his work as a novelist. 

Besides his works of fiction, Mr. Cooper wrote A History of the Navy of the United 
States, 2 vols., and Lives of American Naval Officers, 2 vols. He wrote also a series of 
sketches of travel, including works on England, France, Switzerland, and Italy, and filling 
10 vols. The complete edition of his works occupies 34 vols. 

Mr. Cooper appears to have had a not very amiable temper, and all the latter part of his 
life he was in hot water, quarrelling- first with one set of people, and then with another. 
His writings, too, are of very unequal merit. It would be difficult to name an author of 
such very high merit, who has written so much that is absolutely worthless. Fully one- 
half of what he wrote was a dead weight and a drag upon the other half. With all these 
drawbacks, however; he was one of the greatest and most original writers of his day, and 
he divided with Washington Irving the general recognition which was awarded them in 
Europe. 

THE PANTHER. 

By this time they had gained the summit of the mountain, where they left the high- 
way, and pursued their course under the shade of the stately trees that crowned the emi- 
nence. The day was becoming warm, and the girls plunged more deeply into the forest, as 
they found its invigorating coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive heat they had 
experienced in the ascent. The conversation, as if by mutual consent, was entirely changed 
to the little incidents and scenes of their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub and 
flower, called forth some simple expression of admiration. 

In this manner they proceeded along the margin of the precipice, catching occasional 
glimpses of the placid Otsego, or pausing to listen to the rattling of wheels, and the sounds 
of hammers, that rose from the valley to mingle the signs of men with the scenes of nature, 
when Elizabeth suddenly started, and exclaimed — 

" Listen ! there are the cries of a child on this mountain ! is there a clearing near us ? or 
can some little one have strayed from its parents? " 

"Such things frequently happen," retvuned Louise. " Let us follow the sounds: it may 
be a wanderer starving on the hill." 

Urged by this consideration, the females pursued the low, mournful sounds, that proceeded 
from the forest, with quick and impatient steps. More than once, the ardent Elizabeth was 
on the point of announcing that she saw the sufferer, when Louise caught her by the arm, 
and pointing behind them, cried — 

" Look at the dog ! " 

Brave had been their companion, from the time his young mistress had lured him from 
his kennel, to the present moment. His advanced age had long before deprived him of his 
activity ; and when his companions stopped to view the scenery, or to add to their bouquets, 
the mastiff would lay his huge frame on the ground, and await their movements with ej'es 
closed, and a listlessness in his air that ill accorded with the character of a protector. But 
when, aroused by this cry from Louise, Miss Temple turned, she saw the dog, with his eyes 
keenly set on some distant object, his head bent near the ground, and his hair actually 
rising on his body, through fright or anger. It was most probably the latter, for he was 
growling in a low key, and occasionally showing his teeth, in a manner that would have 
terrified his mistress, had she not so well known his good qualities. 

" Brave ! " she said, " be quiet, Brave ! what do you see, fellow ? " 

At the sound of her voice, the rage of the mastiff, instead of being at all diminished, waa 
very sensibly increased. lie stalked in front of the ladies, and seated himself at the feet of 
his mistress, growling louder than before, and occasionally giving vent to his ire, by a short, 
Burly barking. 

16 



170 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"What does he see? " said Elizabeth : " there must be some animal in sight." 

Hearing no answer from her companion, Miss Temple turned her head, and beheld Louise, 
standing with her face whitened to the color of death, and her finger pointing upwards, with 
a sort of flickering, convulsive motion. The quick eye of Elizabeth glanced in the direction 
indicated by her fi-iend, where she saw the fierce front and glaring eyes of a female panther, 
fixed on them with horrid malignity, and threatening to leap. 

" Let us fly," exclaimed Elizabeth, grasping the arm of Louise, whose form yielded like 
melting snow. 

There was not a single feeling in the temperament of Elizabeth Temple that could prompt 
her to desert a companion in such an extremity. She fell on her knees, by the side of the 
inanimate Louise, tearing from the person of her friend, v>iih instinctive readiness, such 
parts other dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their only safeguard, 
the dog, at the same time by the sounds of her voice. 

" Courage, Brave ! " she cried, her own tones beginning to tremble, "courage, courage, 
good Brave ! " 

A quarter-grown cub, that had hitherto been unseen, now appeared, dropping from the 
branches of a sapling that grew under the shade of the beech which held its dam. This 
ignorant, but vicious creature, approached the dog, imitating the actions and sounds of its 
parent, but exhibiting a strange mixture of the playfulness of a kitten with the ferocity 
of its race. Standing on its hind legs, it would rend the bark of a tree with its fore paws, 
and play the antics of a cat ; and then, by lashing itself with its tail, growling, and scratch- 
ing the earth, it would attempt the manifestations of anger that rendered its parent so terrific. 

All this time Brave stood firm and undaunted, his short tail erect, his body drawn back- 
Avard on its haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub. At 
every gambol played by the latter, it approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the 
three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, overleaping its 
intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There was a moment of fearful cries and 
struggles, but they ended almost as soon as commenced, by the cub appearing in the air, 
hurled from the jaws of Brave, with a violence that sent it against a tree so forcibly as to 
render it completely senseless. 

Elizabeth witnessed the short struggle, and her blood was warmed with the triumph of 
the dog, when she saw the form of the old panther in the air, springing twenty feet from the 
branch of the beech to the back of the mastiff. No words of ours can describe the furj' of 
tlie conflict that followed. It was a confused struggle on the dry leaves, accompanied by 
loiid and terrific cries. Miss Temple continued on her knees, bending over the form of 
Louise, her eyes fixed on the animals, with an interest so horrid, and yet so intense, that she 
almost forgot her own stake in the result. So rapid and vigorous were the bounds of the 
inhabitant of the forest, that its active frame seemed constantly in the air, while the dog 
nobly faced his foe at each successive leap. When the panther lighted on the shoulders of 
the mastiff, which was its constant aim, old Brave, though torn with her talons, and 
btained with his own blood, that already flowed from a dozen wounds, would shake off his 
iurious foe like a feather, and rearing on his hind legs, rush to the fray again, with jaws 
distended, and a dauntless eye. But age, and liis pampered life, greatly disqualified the 
noble mastiff for such a struggle. In everything but courage, he was only the vestige of 
what he had once been. A higher bound than ever raised the wary and furious beast far 
beyond the reach of the dog, who was making a desperate but fruitless dash at her, from 
which she alighted in a favorable position, on the back of her aged foe. For a single moment 
only could the panther remain there, the great strength of the dog returned with a convulsive 
effort. But Elizabeth saw, as Brave fastened his teeth in the side of his enemy, that the 
collar of brass around his neck, which had be<m glittering throughout the fray, was of the 
color of blood, and directly that his fram-e was sinking to the earth, where it soon lay 
prostrate and helpless. Several mighty efforts of the wild-cat to extricate herself from the 
jaws of the dog followed, but they were fruitless until the mastiff turned on his back, hia 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 171 

lipa collapsed, and his teeth loosened, when the short convulsions and stillness that ensued, 
announced the death of poor Brave. 

Elizabeth now hiy wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to be something in the 
front of the image of the Maker that daunts the heart of the inferior beings of his creation; 
and it would seem that some such power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened 
blow. The eyes of the monster and the kneeling maiden met for an instant, when the 
former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next to scent her luckless cub. From the latter 
examination, it turned, however, with its eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail 
lashing its sides furiously, and its claws projecting inches from her broad feet. 

Miss Temple did not or could not move. Her hands were clasped in the attitude of prayer, 
but her eyes were still drawn to her terrible enemy — her cheeks were blanched to the 
whiteness of marble, and her lips were slightly separated with horror. 

The moment seemed to have arrived for the fatal tei-mination, and the beautiful figure of 
Elizabeth wtus bowing meekly to the stroke, when a rustling of leaves behind seemed rather 
to mock the organs than to meet her ears. 

" Hist ! hist ! " said a low voice, " stoop lower, gal ; your bonnet hides the creater's head." 

It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance with this unexpected order, that 
caused the head of our heroine to sink on her bosom ; when she heard the report of the rifle, 
the whizzing of the bullet, and the enraged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on the 
earth biting its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches within its reach. At the next 
instant the form of the Leather-stocking rushed by her, and he called aloud — 

"Come in, Hector, come in, old fool; 'tis a hard-lived animal, and may jump ag'in." 

Natty fearlessly maintained his position in front of the females, notwithstanding the 
violent bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded panther, which gave several indica- 
tions of returning strength and ferocity, until his rifle was again loaded, when he stepped 
lip to the enraged animal, and placing the muzzle close to its head, every spark of life was 
extinguished by the discharge. 

Susan Fenimore Cooper, 1825 — — , daughter of the Novelist, has written several works 
indicating a refined taste and talent of no common order. Her first publication, Rural 
Hours, has passed through several editions. It is a book descriptive of the scenery that 
surrounds her own home, and is an admirable portraiture of American out-door life, just as 
it is, with no coloring but that which every object necessarily receives in passing through 
a cultivated and contemplative mind. Miss Cooper has also written Rhyme and Reason of 
Country Life, and Country Rambles. She has an observant eye, and a happy faculty of mak- 
ing her descriptions interesting by selecting the right objects, instead of the too common 
method of extravagant embellishment. She never goes into ecstasies, and she sees nothing 
which anybody else might not see who walked through the same fields after her. 



Miss Sedgwick, 

Catherine M. Sedgwick, 1789-1867, as a novelist, holds about the 
same rank among the writers of her own sex in the United States that 
Cooper holds among the writers of the other sex. She was the first of lier 
class whose writings became generally known, and the eminence univer- 
sally conceded to her on account of priority has been almost as generally 
granted on other grounds. The novels by which she is best known are 
Hope Leslie, and Redwood, 

Miss Sedgwick was born the same year as Coope*". She was a native, and most of her life, a 
resident of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her father was the Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, of 



172 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Stockbridge, who served his country with distinguished reputation in various stations, and 
particularly in the Congress of the United States as Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
and afterwards as Senator, and who, at the time of his death, was one of the Judges of the 
Supreme Court of his own State. Her brotheis, Henry and Theodore, have both been dis- 
tinguished as lawyers and as political writers. 

Judge Sedgwick died in 1813, before his daughter had given any public demonstratioj of 
her abilities as a writer. Her talents seem to have been from the first justly appreciated by 
her brothers, whose judicious encouragement is very gracefully acknowledged in the preface 
to the new edition of her works, commenced by Mr. Putnam, in 1849. 

Miss Sedgwick's first publication was The New England Tale. The author informs us in 
the preface, that the story was commenced as a religious tract, and that it gradually grew 
in her hands beyond the proper limits of such a work. Finding this to be the case, she 
abandoned all design of publication, but finished the tale for her own amusement. Once 
finished, however, the opinions and solicitations of her friends prevailed over her own 
earnest wishes, and the volume was given to the world in 1822. The original intention of 
this book led the author to give special prominence to topics of a questionable character for 
a professed novel, and the unfavorable portraiture which she gives, both here and elsewhere, 
of New England Puritanism, has naturally brought upon her some censure. The limited 
plan of the story did not give opportunity for the display of that extent and variety of power 
which appear in some of her later productions. Still it contains passages of stirring elo- 
quence, as well as of deep tenderness, that will compare favorably with anything she has 
written. Perhaps the chief value of The New England Tale was its effect upon the author 
herself. Its publication broke the ice of diffidence and indifference, and launched her, with 
a strong wind, upon the broad sea of letters. 

Redwood accordingly followed in 182-i. It was received at once with a degree of favor 
that caused the author's name to be associated, and on equal terms, with that of Cooper, 
who was then at the height of his popularity ; and, indeed, in a French translation of the 
book, which then appeared. Cooper is given on the title-page as the author. Redwood was 
also translated into the Italian, besides being reprinted in England. 

The reputation of the author was confirmed and extended by the appearance, in 1827, of 
Hope Leslie, the most decided favorite of all her novels. She wrote other things afterwards 
that in the opinion of some of the critics are superior to either Redwood or Hope Leslie. 
But these later writings had to jostle their way among a crowd of competitors, both domestic 
and foreign. Her earlier works stood alone, and Hope Leslie, especially, became firmly 
associated in the public mind with the rising glories of a native literature. It was not only 
read with lively satisfaction, but familiarly quoted and applauded as a source of national 
pride. 

Her subsequent novels followed at about uniform intervals : Clarence, a Tale of our Own 
Times, in 1830; Le Bossu, one of the Tales of the Glauber Spa, in 1832; The Linwoods, or 
Sixty Years Since in America, in 1835 ; and, lastly, after an interval of twenty-two years. 
Married or Single, in 1857. 

In 1836, she commenced writing in quite a new vein, giving a series of illustrations of 
common life, called The Poor Rich Man, and The Rich Poor Man. These were followed, in 
1837, by Live and Let Live, and afterwards by Means and Ends, a Love Token for Children, 
and Stories for Young Persons. 

In 1839, Miss Sedgwick went to Europe, and while there wrote Letters from Abroad to 
Kindred at Home. These were collected after her return, and published in two volumes. 

She wrote also a Life of Lucretia M. Davidson, and contributed numerous articles to the 
annuals and magazines. Most of her later publications were prepared expressly for children 
and young persons. The titles of some of her small volumes are Facts and Fancies, Morals 
of Manners, Wilton Harvey, Boy of Mount Rhigi, etc. 

The quality of mind which is most apparent in Miss Sedgwick's writings is that of strength. 
The reader feels at every step that he has to do with a vigorous and active intellect. Another 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 173 

quality, resulting from this possession of power, is the entire absence of affectation of every 
kind. There is no straining for effect, no mere verbal prettinesses. The discourse proceeds 
with the utmost simplicity and directness, as tliough the author were more intent upon 
what she is saying than how she says it. And yet, the mountain springs of her own Ilousa- 
tonic do not send up a more limpid stream than is the apparently spontaneous flow of her 
pure English. 

As a novelist, Miss Sedgwick for the most part, and wisely, chose American subjects. The 
local traditions, scenery, manners, and costume, being thus entirely familiar, she had 
greater freedom in the exercise of the creative faculty,s)n which, after all, real eminence 
in the art mainly depends. Her characters are conceived with distinctness, and are 
minutely individual and consistent, while her plot always shows a mind fertile in resources 
and a happy adaptation of means to ends. 

An interesting volume was published in 1871, called Life and Letters of Catherine M. 
Sedgwick. It was edited by Mary E. Dewey, and was virtually an autobiography. 

Theodore Sedgwick, 1781-1839, brother of Catherine Sedgwick, was a native of Stockbridge, 
and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1798. He practised law in Albany for almost twenty 
years, and then removed to Stockbridge to spend the remainder of his days. He wrote 
Public and Private Economy, 3 vols. ; Hints to My Countrymen ; and two Addresses to the 
Berkshire Agricultural Association. — Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick, 1789 , wife of the pre- 
ceding, was a granddaughter of Governor Livingston of New Jersey. She wrote The 
Morals of Pleasure ; The Young Emigrants ; Allen Prescott ; Alida, or Town and Country. 

Miss Mcintosh. 

Maria J. McIntosh, 1803 , has written a large number of novels 

and tales, all of a domestic character, and all excellent in tone and spirit. 
Those which have shown greatest power, and met with the most general 
acceptance, are Conquest and Self- Con quest, Charms and Counter-Charms, 
The Lofty and The Lowly, and Two Lives, or To Seem and To Be. Miss 
Mcintosh worthily takes up the line of succession after Miss Sedgwick. 

Miss Mcintosh was born at Sunbnry, Liberty County, Georgia. Her grandfather was one 
of a band of doughty Scotch Highlanders, who on the final downfall of the Stuarts came 
with Oglethorpe to America, and assisted in the settlement of his colony. Her father. Major 
Lachlan Mcintosh, served with gallantry and distinction in the war for Independence. At 
the close of the war, he returned to his original profession, that of the law. His house, a 
stately old mansion, was noted for its generous hospitality. 

On the death of her parents. Miss Mcintosh, in 1835, came to New York, where she has 
resided ever since. The whole of her ample fortune was invested in New York securities 
just before the terrible crash of 1837. The lady awoke, one morning, to find herself bankrupt 
in a strange city. Thrown thus upon her own resources for support. Miss Mcintosh resorted 
to her pen, and has continued from time to time to give to the world the fruits of her labor. 
Some of her publications are as late as 1863, but the period of her greatest activity and pro- 
ductiveness wjis from 1840 to 1850. 

Miss Mcintosh's first work, Blind Alice, appeared in 1811. It was followed in quick suc- 
cession by Jessie Oi-aham, Florence Arnott, Grace and Clara, and Ellen Leslie. These are 
generally known as Aunt Kitty's Tales. They were intended mainly for juvenile readers. 
They are simple stories of American life, told in easy and graceful language, without exag- 
geration or false sentiment, and while attractive and pleasurable, have yet for their primary 
object the aim to teach some useful lesson of life and morals. 

In 1844, Miss Mcintosh published Conquest and Self-Conquest, her first regular novel. 
This was followed in 1845 by Praise and Principle; in 1847, by Two Lives, or To Seem and 
To Be; and in 1«48, by her greateat work, Charms and Countor-Charma. The Lofty and 
15^ 



174 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The Lowly appeared two years later. Besides these novels, she published Woman in 
America, her Work and her Reward, a didactic work, discussing without any veil of fiction 
the duties and responsibilities of women. She published also The Cousins, a tale for children, 
and Evenings at Donaldson Manor, — a collection of short tales. Her later publications 
have been Violet, or the Cross and the Crown ; Meta Gray ; and Two Pictures. 

Miss Mcintosh makes no attempt at what is called descriptive writing, meaning by that, 
the description of local scenery and manners, of which Cooper was such a consummate 
master. She is a delineator of mental life, and of that only. The external, in man and 
animals or nature, is never used, except so far as it is necessary to bring forward the mind, its 
virtues, desires, and principles. She excludes from her attention everything not absolutely 
necessary to the moral life. Her heroes and heroines may be in Paris or in Rome, but it is 
in name only. There is no local coloring to make one place rather than another needful for 
the story. 

Miss Mcintosh still further restricts herself in the characters of her story, taking those 
only which belong to common, practical life. Furthermore, while her tales are not wanting in 
interest and excitement, yet the moral is with her ever supreme. She has evidently felt it 
to be her calling, not to minister to the pleasure merely of her readers, but to be a public 
teacher of what is right and true in domestic life. 

John P. Kennedy. 

John Pendleton Kennedy, 1795-1870, comes next after Cooper and 
Miss Sedgwick in the list of American novelists. His three novels, Swallow 
Barn, Horse-Shoe Robinson, and Rob of the Bowl, besides their value as 
works of art, are all careful historical studies, giving us admirable pictures 
of life in the Southern States in the earlier days of the republic. 

Mr. Kennedy was a native of Baltimore, in which city he also completed his studies and 
•was admitted to the bar. He took a prominent part in politics, on the Whig side ; was a 
member of the Maryland House of Delegates and also of the United States House of Repre- 
sentatives ; and in 1852 he was appointed, by Fillmore, Secretary of the Navy. 

In 1818, in company with Peter Hoffman Cruse, Mr. Kennedy began the publication of 
The Red Book, a miscellaneous fortnightly in prose and verse. In 1832 Swallow Barn 
appeared, being a tale descriptive of life and manners in the Old Dominion. This was fol- 
lowed, in 1835, by Horse-Shoe Robinson. This was a tale of soldier life during the American 
Revolution, and was even more popular than its predecessor. In 1838 appeared Rob of the 
Bow], another historical novel based upon the troubles between Catholics and Protestants 
ill the early history of Maryland. In 1850, Mr Kennedy published his well-known life of 
William Wirt, a valuable contribution to the history of the United States. Besides these 
works, Mr. Kennedy has contributed to the periodical literature essays enough to fill 
several volumes. 

An admirable Lifs of Kennedy has been written by his friend, Henry T. Tuckerman. 

James K. Paulding. 

James Kirke Paulding, 1778-1860, was distinguished both as a poli- 
tician and a man of letters. He held various political offices, the highest 
being that of Secretary of the Navy. He wrote numerous works, prose and 
verse, humorous and serious. The best known are John Bull and Brother 
Jonathan, The Three Wise Men of Gotham, and The Dutchman's Fireside. 

Mr. Paulding was a native of Dutchess County, New York, and lived the greater part of 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 175 

his life in New York city. By the marriage of liis sister to William Irving, Paulding became 
intimate with tlie Irving family; and his first literary work was a copartnership with 
"Washington Irving in the composition of the &ilniagundi Papers. A political pamphlet by 
Mr, Paulding, entitled The United States and England, brought him to the notice of Presi- 
dent Madison, and led to Madison's making him, in 1814, Secretary of the Board of Navy 
Commissioners. Mr. Paulding afterwards was for twelve years Navy Agent in New York 
city, and in 18o9-41, he was Secretary of the Navy, under Van Buren. 

By far the greater part of what Mr. Paulding did, in the way of pen-work, was political 
■writing for the newsi)apers. But he never lost his early fondness for literary pursuits, and 
his contributions to polite letters were considerable, for one who did not make literature a 
profession. 

Ilis principal works are the following: The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle ; The Diverting 
History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan ; John Bull in America; Sketch of Old England 
by a New England man ; Three Wise Men of Gotham ; Konigsmark; The Dutchman's Fire- 
side; The Backwoodsman; Letters from the South; Life of Washington; Westward Ho! 
Slavery in the United States ; The Old Continental ; The Painter and his Daughter. He also 
•wrote, in connection with his son, William J. Paulding, a volume of American Comedies, 
The literary Life of Mr. Paulding, consisting in great measure of extracts from his various 
writings, has been published by his son, already referred to. 

One of the most amusing of Mr. Paulding's works was The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle, "a 
Tale of Havre de Grace, supposed to be written by Walter Scott, Esq. First American, 
from the fourth Edinburgh edition." This good-natured parody on Scott's Lay of the Last 
Minstrel was intended to lash certain follies of the Americans, and also to expose some of 
the excesses of the British in the Chesapeake. The poem wiis in five cantos. It w.is pub- 
lished in 1S13, and has been several tinjes reprinted. "The course of the story is this. A 
blind fiddler, le«! by his dog, finds his way from New York to Princeton, where he brings up 
at the tavern. Here he is induced to sing his Lay, and — (with the episode of a grand row 
of students from Nassau Hall) works through it." 

RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE, 

Among the descendants of Pocahontas, the most remarkable are John Randolph and 
Boiling Robertson, The eyes of both are perfectly Indian — black, shining, and occasionally 
fierce. Indeed, I have never met with a man having a cross with the aboriginal, that did 
not show it like a blood-horse. The mark seems indelible, both in body and mind. 

In my visit to Washington, four winters ago, it was my fortune to lodge in the same 
hotel with Mr. Randolph, and to be favored with his acquaintance, I might almost say his 
friendship, which, notwithstanding his alleged wayward disposition is, I am told, generally 
steadfast and sincere. He is certainly the most extniordinary personage I have known, 
and, on the whole, the greatest orator I have heard. There is wit in everything he says, and 
eloquence at every end of his long fingers. He is the last man in the world into whoso 
hands I should wish to fall in a debate, for he cuts with a two-<Hlgcd sword, and makes war 
like his Indian ancestors, sparing neither sex nor age. Yet his tenderness is irresistible, 
and when he wishes to evince it, the tones of his voice and the expression of his eye go 
equally to the heart. 

His stylo of oratory in Congress is emphatically his own. He is indeed original and 
unique in everything. His language is simple, though polished ; brief, though rich, and as 
direct as the arrow from the Indian bow. He often tides away, apparently, from his sub- 
ject, but, however he may seem to drift without rudder or compass, never fails to i-eturu 
with a dash, illustrating it with flashes of living light. Though eccentric in the ordinary 
intercour.se of life, there will be found more of what is called plain common-sense in his 
speeches than in those of any other member of Congress. His illustrations are almost 
always drawn from the most familiar sources, and no man is so happy in allusions to fables, 
proverbs, and incidents of the day. He never declaims, or sacrifices strength, clearness, and 



176 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

simplicity, to the more popular charms of redundant metaphor and full rounded periods. He 
is abrupt, sententious, and laconic. Nothing, indeed, is more easy of comprehension than 
the expressed ideas of the great orator of Yirginia. Though exceedingly irritable in debate, 
he is never loud or boisterous, but utters biting sarcasm ift a manner the most provckingly 
cool, and a voice that suggests the music of the spheres. Such is the admirable clearness 
and perfection of his enunciation, that his lowest tones circulate like echoes through the 
hall of Congress. In short, in all the requisites of a great orator he has no superior ; and, 
in the greatness of all, the power of attracting, charming, riveting the attention of an audi- 
ence, no equal in this country. 

Mr. Randolph has shared the fortunes of most political leaders, in having his conduct mis- 
represented, his foibles — Avhich, Heaven knows, are suflSciently formidable— exaggerated, 
and his peculiaiities caricatured, without remorse. The fault is, in a great measure, his 
own. He spares no adversary, and has no right to expect quarter from others. In this 
respect his fate may serve as a beacon, indicating the necessity of toleration in politics as 
well as in religion. That lie is capricious, and careless of wounding those for whom he has 
no particular regard, no one will deny. That he is impatient in argument, and intolerant 
of opposition, is equally certain ; and the whole world knows that he is little solicitous to 
disguise his contempt or dislike. 

But, whatever may be the defects of Mr. Randolph's temper, no one can question his lofty 
independence of mind, or his unsullied integrity as a piiblic agent or as a private gentleman. 
In the former character he has never abandoned his principles to suit any political crisis, 
and in the latter he may be emphatically called an honest man. His word and his bond are 
equally to be relied on — and as his country can never accuse him of sacrificing her interests 
to Lis own ambition, so no man can justly charge him with the breach of any private obli- 
gation. In both these respects he stands an illustrious example to a country in which 
political talents are more common than political integrity, and where it is too much the 
custom to forget the actions of a man in admiration of his speeches. 

We passed our evenings together for some weeks, or rather I may say the better part of 
our nights, for he loved to sit up late, because, as he was wont to say, the grave, not the bed, 
was his place of rest. On these occasions there was a charm in his conversation I never 
found in that of any other person. Old Virginia was the goddess of his idolatry, and of her 
he delighted to talk. He loved her so dearly, that he sometimes almost forgot he was also 
a citizen of the United States. The glories and triumphs of Patrick Henry's eloquence, and 
the ancient hospitality of the patricians on .Tames River, were among the favorite topics, of 
which he never tired, and with which he never tired me. In short, the impression on my 
mind, never to be eradicated, is, that his heart was naturally liberal, open, and gracious, 
and that his occasional ebullitions of splenetic impatience were the spontaneous, perhaps, 
irrepressible eflForts of a debilitated frame to relieve itself a moment from the impression 
o. its own ceaseless worrying. 

Wr Randolph is, 1 eyond comparison, the most striking person I have ever met. He la 
made up of contradictions. Though his person is exceedingly tall, thin, and ill-proportioned, 
he is the most graceful man in the world when he pleases; and with an almost feminine 
voice, his whispers are heard across a room. When seated on the opposite side of the hall 
of Congress, he looks like a boy of fifteen ; but when he rises to speak, he seems to stretch 
and expand his figure almost into sublimity, from the contrast between his height when 
sitting and standing. In the former, his shoulders are raised, hia head sunk, his body col- 
lapsed; in the latter he is seen, his figure dilated, in the attitude of inspiration, his head 
raised, his long white finger pointing, and his dark Indian eye flashing, at the object of his 
overwhelming sarcasm. 

Such is John Randolph, the descendant of Pocahontas, as he appeared to me. He may be 
eelf-willed, and erratic. His opponents sometimes insinuate lliat he is crazy, because he 
sees what they cannot see, and speaks in the spirit of inspiration of things to come. He 
looks into the clear mirror of futurity with an eye that never winks, and they think he la 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 177 

staring at some phantom of his own creation. He talks of things past their comprehension, 
and they pronounce him mad. 

Would to Heaven there were more such madmen among our rulers and legislators, to 
make folly silent and wickedness ashamed ; to assert and defend the principles of our revo- 
lution; to detect quack politicians, quack lawyers, and quack divines; and to afiford to their 
countrymen examples of inflexible integrity both in public and private life. 

THE QUARREL OF SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON JONATHAN. 

John Bull wiis a choleric old fellow, who held a good manor in the middle of a great mill- 
pond, and which, by reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called 
Bullock Island. Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous 
cutler, and a notable weaver, and pot-baker besides. He also brewed capital porter, ale, and 
small beer, and was in fact a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, and good at each. In addition to 
these, he was a hearty fellow, an excellent bottle-companion, and passably honest as 
times go. 

But what tarnished all these qualities was a quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, 
which was always getting him into some scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of 
a quarrel going on among his neighbors, but his fingers itched to be in the thickest of 
them ; so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose. 
Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by the country people his neighbors — 
one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they 
are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not. 

The squire was as tight a hand to deal with in-doors as out ; sometimes treating his family 
as if they were not the same flesh and blood, when they happened to differ with him in certain 
matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son Jonathan, who was familiarly 
called Brother Jonathan, about whether churches ought to be called churches or meeting- 
houses; and whether steeples were not an abomination. The squire, either having the 
worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient of contradiction, (I can't tell which,) 
fell into a great passion, and swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle. 
So he went to some of his doctors and got them to di-aw up a prescription, made up of thirty- 
nine different articles, many of them bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make 
Jonathan swallow; and finding he made villanous wry faces, and would not do it, fell upon 
him and beat him like fury. After this, he made the house so disagreeable to him, that 
Jonathan, though hard as a pine-knot and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. 
Taking his gun and his axe, he put himself in a boat, and paddled over the mill-pond to 
some new lands to which the squire pretended some sort of claim, intending to settle there, 
and build a meeting-house without a steeple as soon as he grew rich enough. 

When he got over, Jonathan found that the land was quite in a state of nature, covered 
with wood, and inhabited by nobody but wild beasts. But being a lad of mettle, he took 
his axe on one shoulder and his gun on the other, marched into the thickest of the wood, 
and clearing a place, built a log hut. Pursuing his labors, and handling his axe like a 
notable woodman, he in a few years cleared the land, which ho laid out into thirteen good 
farms; and building himself a fine frame house, about half-finished, began to bo quite 
snug and comfortable. 

But Squire Bull, who was getting old and stingy, and, besides, was in great want of money, 
on account of his having lately been made to pay swinging damages for assaulting his neigh- 
bors and breaking their heads — the squire, I say, fiuding Jonathan was getting well to 
do in the world, began to be very much troubled about his welfare; so ho demanded that 
Jonathan should pay him a good rent for the land which he had cleared and made good for 
something. He trumped up I know not what claim against him, and under different pre- 
tences managed to pocket all Jonathan's honest gains. lu fact, the poor lad had not a 

M 



178 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

shilling left for holiday occasions; and had it not been for the filial respect he felt for the 
old man, he would certainly have refused to submit to such impositions. 

But for all this, in a little time, Jonathan grew up to be very large of his age, and became a 
tall, stout, double-jointed, broad-footed cub of a fellow, awkward in his gait and simple in 
his appearance ; but showing a lively, shrewd look, and having the promise of great strength 
when he should get his full growth. He was rather an odd-looking chap, in truth, and 
had many queer ways ; but everybody that had seen John Bull saw a great likeness between 
them, and swore he was John's own boy, and a true chip of the old block. Like the old 
squire, he was apt to be blustering and saucy, but in the main'was a peaceable sort of care- 
less fellow, that would quarrel with nobody if you only let him alone. He used to dress in 
homespun trousers with a huge bagging seat, which seemed to have nothing in it. This 
made people say he had no bottom ; but whoever said so lied, as they found to their cost 
whenever they put Jonathan in a passion. He always wore a linsey-wolsey coat that did 
not above half cover his breech, and the sleeves of which were so short that his hand and 
wrist came out beyond them, looking like a shoulder of mutton. All which was in conse- 
quence of his growing so fast that he outgrew his clothes. 

While Jonathan was outgrowing his strength in this way. Bull kept on picking his pock- 
ets of every penny he could scrape together ; till at last one day when the squire was even 
more than usually pressing in his demands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan 
started up in a furious passion and threw the Tea-kettle at the old man's head. The choleric 
Bull was hereupon exceedingly enraged; and after calling the poor lad an undutiful, un- 
grateful, rebellious rascal, seized him by the collar, and forthwith a furious scuffle ensued. 
This lasted a long time ; for the squire, though in years, was a capital boxer, and of most 
excellent bottom. At last, however, Jonathan got him under, and before he would let him 
up, made him sign a paper giving up all claim to the farms, and acknowledging the fee- 
simple to be in Jonathan forever. 

John Sanderson. 

John Sanderson, 1783-1844, was a man of genial temper and great 
kindness of heart, and a genuine humorist. His American in Paris, and 
American in London have seldom been excelled for brilliancy of wit. Be- 
sides these works, he edited The Biography of the Signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, in seven volumes, and wrote the first two volumes of 
the collection. 

Prof. Sanderson was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania; he studied law for a time; became 
a classical teacher; resided in Paris for a year, 1835-6; and was one of the original Pro- 
fessors in the Philadelphia High-School, from 1838 to 1844. 

DINING IN PARIS. 

The French being naturally a more sociable people than the English, and being less 
wealthy, and having less comfortable homes, frequent more public-houses; so that these 
establishments are, of course, made to excel in decoration and convenience as well as science. 
Indeed, cookery at home, and many other things at home, will always want the stimulus ne- 
cessary to a very high state of improvement. No one of the arts has attained eminence even, 
unless fostered by i-ivalship and public patronage, and brought under the popular insi)ec- 
tion. Much is said about the undomesticated way of the Fi-euch living, but certain it is that 
the social qualities have gained more than the domestic have lost ; and it is certain that the 
wealthy and fashionable French are after all less erratic in their habits and less discontented 
with their homes tlian the domestic and comfortable English. Comfort! comfort! nolhing 
but comfort 1 To escape they wander everywhere upon the broad sea and laud, and reside 



FROM 1<S30 TO 1850. 179 

ciniong the Loo-koos, Creeks, and Negroes — everj'where disgusted. Whcro — into what 
uncivilized nook of cartli, can you go without finding even tliere women? 

'"If to the west yon roam, 
There some blue's 'at home' 

Among the blacks of Carolina, 
Or fly you to the east, you see 
Some Mrs. Hopkins at her tea 

And toast, upon the walls of China." 

The very genteel Parisians do not encumber their houses with kitchens at all, and that 
ugly hobdomadal event, a wash-day, is totally unknown in the Parisian domestic economy. 
The families dine out in a family group, or by appointment with friends, or the dinner is 
served in their apartments — a duty which is assigned to an individual j'ou meet every- 
where in a white night-cap and apron, and whom they call a traiteur. 

"What a gay and animated picture the Parisian restaurant with its spacious mirrors, and 
marble tables gracefully distributed, with its pretty woman at the coraptoir, erected for her 
often at the expense of many thousand francs, and with its linen of winnowed snow, the 
whole displayed at night under a blaze of glittering chandeliers, and alive with its joj'ous 
and various company ! The custom of dining the best-bred ladies in these public saloons 
gives them an air of elegance, decency, and vivacity it is in vain to hope for under any direc- 
tion where there is a public separation of the sexes, as in England and America. 

Cooking, like the drama, will conform with public opinion, and bad eaters and bad judges 
of a play, are alike the ruin of good houses, and of the reputation of the artists. Wo to the 
gastronomy of a people whose public taste is gross and uncultivated. In those countries 
where men dine with cj'nical voracity in fifteen minutes, why talk of it? — dine, sm Careme 
eloquently and indignantly expresses it, as if they had craws for the comminution of their 
food after its deglutition. 

I remember about five hundred dyspeptics who used to group themselves about the Red 
Sulphur, (which they preferred of all the Virginia Springs for the abundance of its table ;) 
how they used to saunter about in little squads, or huddle altogether at the little ruby and 
sulphurous fountain, and discourse the livelong day of gastric juices, peristaltic motions, 
kneading of stomachs, virtues of aliments and remedies, inquiring diligently into the cause 
that might be assigned for tlie almost epidemic prevalence of this disease; some blaming 
the stars, some hot rolls, others the cacochymical qualities of our American climate, and a 
few threatened to leave the country. Two Tirginia members believed it was the exciting 
nature of our institutions, and they sat about on stumps, (these gentlemen having a great 
affinity for stumps,) pale, abdominous, and wan, and nearly disgusted with republicanism ; 
and there was an Irish gentleman, who had a strong suspicion ho might have been changed 
at nurse, for he was a healthy baby. 

These things are better managed in China. Chewing is done, they say, at a large Chinese 
ordinary, by a kind of isochronical movement, regulated by music. They have a leader, ius 
at our concerts, and up go the jaws upon sharp F, and down upon G flat. I wish our "Con- 
script Fathers " at Washington, if it would not interfere too much with the liberty of the 
subject, would take this matter under consideration, and if, themselves, they would chew 
and digest a little more their dinners and speeches, I beg leave to intimate, it would be, not 
only a personal comfort, but an economy of the money and reputation of the Republic. The 
destiny of a nation, says a sensible French writer, may depend upon the digestion of the 
first minister. Who knows, then, but the distress that hius fallen, without any assignable 
cause, like a blight upon our prosperity ; that the contentious ill-humors of our two Ilimses ; 
their sparrings, duellings, floggings, removal of deposits, expungings, vetoings, and disrup- 
tion of cabinets, may not bo chiefly owing to an imperfect mastication by the two honorable 
bodies, the president, secretaries, and others entrusted with the mismanagement of the 
country. Legislation on such subjects is not without respectable precedent. The cmj^eror 



180 AMERICAN LITERATUBE. 

Domitiau had it brought regtilarly before his senate what sauce he should employ upon a 
turbot. It was put to vote in committee of the M'hole, and the decree (as related by Tacitus, 
and translated by the Almanack des Gourmands) was a sauce piquante. 

The entire force of appetite is concentrated, in Paris, upon two meals, and an Infinite 
variety of dishes is sought to give enjoyment to these two meals. To dine on a single dish 
the French call an " atrocity." The precept of the gourmand is to economize appetite and 
prolong pleasure, and therefore intermediate refreshments of all kinds are strictly forbidden. 
Cake-shops are patronized by foreigners only. 

Joseph C. NeaL 

Joseph C. Neai^, 1807-1847, was, like Sanderson, essentially a humorist. 
Mr. Neal's Charcoal Sketches, containing amusing pictures of city life, were 
in their time as original and as racy as the earlier papers of the same kind 
by Dickens. Another volume of like character, by Mr. Neal, was called 
Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities. 

Mr. Neal died in early manhood, much lamented by the public, with 
whom he was fast becoming a general favorite. 

Mr. Neal was born at Greenland, New Hampshire. He settled in Philadelphia, and in 
1831 became editor of the Pennsylvanian, a political paper, in which position he was entirely 
out of his element. In 1844, he began a weekly literary paper on his own account, Neal's 
Saturday Gazette, which was received with marked favor, and which he continued to edit 
until the time of his death. 

A PRETTY TIME OF NIGHT. 

We know it to be theoretical in certain schools — in the kitchen, for instance, which 
is the most orthodox and sensible of the schools — that, as a general rule, the leading fea- 
tures of character are indicated by the mode in which we pull the bell ; and that, to a con- 
siderable extent we may infer the kind of person who is at the door — just as we do the kind 
of fish that bobs the cork — by the species of vibration which is given to the wire. Bash, 
impetuous, choleric, and destructive, what chance has the poor little bell in such hands? 
But the considerate, modest, lowly, and retiring — do you ever know such people to break 
things? Depend upon it, too, that our self-estimate is largely indicated by our conduct in 
this respect. If it does not betray what we really are, it most assuredly discloses the 
temper of the mind at the moment of our ringing. 

"Tinkle!" 

Did you hear ? 

Nothing could be more amiable or more unobtrusive than that. It would scarcely disturb 
the nervous system of a mouse; and whoever listened to it, might at once understand that 
it was the soft tintinnabulary whisper of a gentleman of the convivial turn and of the 
"locked out " description, who, conscious probably of default, is desirous of being admitted 
to his domiciliary comforts, upon the most pacific and silent terms that can be obtained 
from those who hold the citadel and possess the inside of the door. 

" Tinkle ! " 

Who can doubt that he — Mr. Tinkle — would take off bis boots and go up-stairs in his 
stocking-feet, muttering rebuke to every step that creaked? What a deprecating mildness 
there is in the deportment of the " great locked out I " How gently do they tap, and how 
softly do they ring; while perchance, in due proportion to their enjoyment in untimely and 
protracted revel, is the penitential aspect of their return. There is a " never-do-so-any-more- 
ishness"all about them — yea — even about the bully boys "who. would n't go homo till 
morning — till daylight does appear," singing up to the very door; and when they 

"Tinkle!" 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 181 

It is intended as a hint merely, and not as a broad annnnciation — insinuated — not pro- 
claimed aloud — that somebody who is very sorry — who "didn't go to help it," and all 
that — is at the threshold, and that if it be the same to you, he would be exceedingly glad 
to come in, with as little of scolding and rebuke as may be thought likely to answer the 
purpose. There is a hope in it — a subdued hope — 

"Tinkle!" 

— that perchance a member of the family — good-natured as well as insomnolent — may be 
spontaneously awake, and disposed to open the door without clamoring up Malcolm, Don- 
albain, and the whole house. Why should every one know ? But — 

" Tinkle — tinkle ! " 

Even patience itself — on a damp, chilly, unwholesome night — patience at the street door, 
all alone by itself and disposed to slumber — as patience is apt to be after patience has been 
partakinsr of potations and of collations — even patience itself cannot be expected to remain 
tinkling there — "pianissimo" -hour after hour, as if there was nothing else in this world 
worthy of attention but the ringing of bells. Who can be surprised, that patience at last 
becomes reckless and desperate, let the consequences — rhinoceroses or Hyrcan tigers — 
eissume what shape they may ? 

There is a furious stampede upon the marble — a fierce word or two of scathing Saxon, 
and then — 

"Rangle — ja-a-a-ngle — ra-a-a-ng ! ! ! " the sound being that of a sharp, stinging, excru- 
ciating kind, which leads to the conclusion that somebody is "worse," and is getting in a 
rage. 

That one, let me tell you, was Mr. Dawson Dawdle, in whom wrath had surmounted dis- 
cretion, and who, as a forlorn hope, had now determined to make good his entrance — 
assault, storm, escalade — at any hazard and at any cost. Dawson Dawdle was furious now 

— " sevagerous " — as you have been, probably, when kept at the door tiU your teeth rattled 
like castanets and cachuchas. 

Passion is picturesque in attitude as well as poetic in expression. Dawson Dawdle braced 
his feet one on each side of the door-post, as a purchase, and tugged at the bell with both 
hands, until windows flew up in all directions, and night-capped heads in curious variety 
were projected into the gloom. Something seemed to be the matter at Dawdle's. 

" Who 's sick ? " cried one. 

" Where 's the fire ? " asked another. 

" The Mexicans are come ! " shouted a third. But Dawson Dawdle had reached that state 
of intensity, which is regardless of every consideration but that of the business in hand, and 
he continued to pull away, as if at work by the job, while several watchmen stood by in 
admiration of his zeal. Yet there was no answer to this pe.aling appeal for admittance — 
not that Mrs. Dawson Dawdle was deaf — not she — nor dumb, either. Nay, she had recog- 
nized Mr. Dawdle's returning step — that husband's "foot" which should according to the 
poet, 

"Have music in't, 
As he comes up the stair." 

But Dawdle was allowed to make his music in the street, while his wife — obdurate — 
listened with a smile bordering, we fear, a little upon exultation, at his progressive lessons 
and rapid improvement in the art of ringing " triple-bob-majors." 

"Let him wait," remarked Mrs, Dawson Dawdle; "let him wait — 'twill do him good. 
I 'm sure I 've been waiting long enough for him." 

And so she had; but, though there be a doubt whether this process of waiting had " done 
good" in her own case, yet, if there be truth or justice in the vengeful practice which would 
have us act towards others precisely as they deport themselves to us, — and every one con- 
cedes that it is very agreeable, however wrong, to carry on the war after this fashior., — 
Mrs. Dawson Dawdle could have little difficulty in justifying herself for the course adopted. 

Only to think of it, now I 
16 



182 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Da-wson Dawdle is one of those natural and proper people, who become sleepy of even- 
ings, and who are rather apt to yawn after tea. Mr. Dawson Dawdle, on the other hand, is 
of the unnatural and improper species, who are not sleepy or yawny of evenings — never so, 
except of mornings. Dawson insists on it that he is no chicken to go to roost at sundown ; 
while Mrs. Dawson Dawdle rises with the lark. The larks he prefers are larks at night. 
Now, as a corrective to these differences of opinion, Dawson Dawdle had been cunaingly 
deprived of his pa.ss-key, that he might be induced "to remember not to forget" to come 
borne betimes — a thing he was not apt to remember, especially if good companionship 
intervened 

This last peal — as peals, under such circumstances, are apt to be — was louder, more 
sonorous, and in all respects more terrific than any of its " illustrious predecessors," prac- 
tice in this respect tending to the improvement of skill on the one hand, just as it adds 
provocation to temper on the other. For a moment, the fate of Dawson Dawdle quivered 
in the scale, as the ej'e of his exasperated lady glanced fearfully round the room for a means 
of retaliation and redress. Nay, her hand rested for an instant upon a pitcher, while 
thoughts of hydropathics, douches, shower-baths, Graef?nbergs, and Priessnitzes, in th^ir 
medicinal application to dilatory husbands, presented themselves in quick aquatic succes- 
sion, like the rushings of a cataract. Never did man come nearer to being drowned than 
Mr. Dawson Dawdle. 

" But no," said she, relenting ; " if he were to ketch his death o' cold, he 'd be a great deal 
more trouble than he is now — husbands with bad colds — coughing husbands and sneexiug 
husbands — are the stupidest and tiresomest kind of husbands ; bad as they may be, ducking 
don't improve 'em. I '11 have recourse to moral suasion ; and if that won't answer, I '11 
duck him afterwards." 

Suddenly, and in the midst of a protracted jangle, the door flew widely open, and dis- 
played the form of Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, standing sublime — silent — statuesque — wrapped 
in wrath and enveloped in taciturnity. Dawdle was appalled. 

" My dear ! " and his hand dropped nervelessly from the bell-handle. " My dear, it 's me 

— only me ! " 

Not a word of response to the tender appeal — the lady remained obdurate in silence — 
chilly and voiceless as the marble, with her eyes sternly fixed upon the intruder. Dawson 
Dawdle felt himself running down. 

"My dear — he! he!" and Dawson laughed with a melancholy quaver — "it's me that's 
come home-^you know me — it 's late. I confess — it 's most alwaj's late — and I — ho ! ho ! 

— why don't you say something, Mrs. Dawson Dawdle! — Do you think I'm going to be 
skeered, Mrs. Dawdle? " 

As the parties thus confronted each other, Mrs. Dawdle's "masterly inactivity " proved 
overwhelming. For reproaches, Dawson was prepared — he could bear part in a war of 
opinion — the squabble is easy to most of us — but where are we when the antagonist will 
not deign to speak, and environs us, as it were, in an ambuscade, so that we fear the more 
because we don't know what to fear? 

"Why don't she blow me up? " queried Dawdle to himself, as he found his valor collap- 
sing — " why don't she blow me up like an affectionate woman and a loving wife, instead of 
standing there in that ghostified fashion? " 

Mrs. Dawdle's hand slowly extended itself towards the culprit, Avho made no attempt at 
evasion or defence — slowly it entwined itself in the folds of his neck-handkerchief, and, as 
the unresisting Dawson had strange fancies relative to bow-strings, he found himself drawn 
inward by a sure and steady grasp. Swiftly was he sped through the darksome entry and 
up the winding stair, without a word to comfort him in his stumbling progress. 

"Dawson Dawdle ! look at the clock! —a pretty time of night, indeed, and you a married 
man. Look at the clock. I say, and see." 

Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, however, had, for the moment, lost her advantage in thus giving 
utterance to her emotion ; and Mr. Dawson Dawdle, though much shaken, began to recover 
his spirits. 



FROM 1-830 TO 1850. 183 

"Two o'clock, Mr. Dawson — two ! — is n't it two, I ask you ? " 

"If you are positive about the fact, Mrs. Dawson, it would be unbecoming in me to call 
your veracity in question, and I decline looking. So far as I am informed, it generally is 
two o'clock just about this time in the morning — at least, it always has been whenever I 
stayed up to see. If the clock is right, you "11 be apt to find it two just as it strikes two — 
that 's the reason it strikes, and I don't know that it could have a better reason." 

"A pretty time ! " 

"Yes — pretty enough !" responded Dawdle; "when it don't rain, one time of night is as 
pretty as another time of night — it's the people that's up in the time of night, that 's not 
pretty ; and you, Mrs. Dawdle, are a case in point — keeping a man out of his own house. 
It 's not the night that 's not pretty, Mrs. Dawdle, hut the goings on. As for me, I 'ra for 
peace — a deadlatch key and peace ; and I move that the goings on be indefinitely postponed, 
because, Mrs. Dawdle, I 've heard it all before — and I know it like a book ; and if you insist 
on it, Mrs. Dawdle, I '11 save you trouble, and speak the whole speech for you right off the 
reel, only I can't cry good when I 'm jolly." 

But Dawson Dawdle's volubility, assumed for the purpose of hiding his own misgivings, 
did not answer the end which. he had in view ; for Mrs. Dawson Dawdle, having had a glimpse 
at its effects, again resorted to the " silent system " of connubial management. She spoke 
no more that night, which Dawson, perchance, found agreeable enough; but she would not 
speak any more the day after, which perplexed him when he came down too late for break- 
fast, or returned too late for dinner. 

"I do wish she would say something." muttered Dawdle ; "something cross, if she likes 
— any thing, so it makes a noise. It makes a man feel bad, after he 's used to being talked 
to, not to be talked to in the old-fashioned way. When one's so accustomed to being blowed 
up, it seems as if he was lost or did n't belong to anybody, if no one sees to it that he's 
blowed up at the usual time. Bachelors, perhaps, can get along well enough without hav- 
ing their comforts properly attended to in this respect, — what do they know, the miserable 
creatures, about such warm receptions, and such little endearments? When they are out 
too late, nobody 's at home preparing a speech for them ; but I feel just as if I was a wid- 
ower, if I 'm not talked to for not being at home in time." . 

John Neal. 

John Neal, 1793 , is at this time the Nestor of American maga- 

zinists. He began writing early in life, his first volume having appeared 
in 1817, and he has continued almost to the present time to exercise his 
gifts, his latest volume bearing the date of 1870. Mr. Neal first gained 
celebrity in 1824, by a series of brilliant papers in Blackwood's Magazine. 
These papers were chiefly on American affairs, and were written in Eng- 
land, where the author was at that time resident. 

Mr. Neal was born, and for the greater part of his life he has lived, in Portland, Maine. 
lie was originally a Friend, but left the society. At the age of twelve, he was a shop-boy in 
Portland. Afterwards he taught drawing and penmanship in various towns in Maine. Then 
he was a dry-goods jobber successively in Boston, New York, and Baltimore. Failing in this 
line, he began in 1816 the study of law, but finally, in 1817, determined to throw himsi-lf 
upon his pen for support, and from that time until 1850 he was engaged almost continuously 
in authorship. lie hiis written both in prose and verse. His writings have been on almost 
every variety of topic, and have appeared sometimes in magazines, and sometimes in inde- 
pendent volumes. He wrote usually with extraordinary rapidity, his pieco.s being struck 
off at a white heat, aud without pausing to correct or polish. The amount of his contribu- 



184 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tions to current literature is enormous, and they contain much that is valuable. Yet it is 
doubtful -whether any of his works will survive. Prominent among his novels are Logan, 
Randolph, Seventy-six (scene laid in the American Revolution), Rachel Dyer, The Down- 
Easters, Brother Jonathan, Authorship, True Womanhood, etc. He has also written Otho, 
Our Ephraim, and other plays, and the poems on The Battle of Niagara, Goldan the Maniac 
Harper, etc. In 1870 he published a semi-autobiographical work. Wandering RecoUoctions 
of a Somewhat Busy Life. 

Mr. Xeal has evinced unquestionable poetical ability. His verse is vigorous and contains 
occasional passages of high merit, but is rendered intolerable by want of pruning and 
toning down. In the words of Griswold, the author " has no just sense of proportion," 
or, as Lowell has still more sharply expressed it, in his Fable for Critics, he 

— " cracked half the notes of a truly fine voice 
Because song drew less instant attention than noise." 

Mr. Neal's novels and plays also, although rich in fine passages, are spoiled by extravagance 
and incoherency. His abilities are unquestionable. With a little more care, and a little 
less impatience, he might have achieved permanent renowTi. 

WiiLiAM Leggett, 1802-1840, was a native and resident of the city of New York. He 
served for a while as midshipman in the U. S. Navy ; was editor of The Critic, and associated 
with Wm. C. Bryant in the editorship of The Evening Post; also editor of The Plain- 
dealer. Aside from his editorial labors he published Leisure Hours at Sea, a volume of 
poems composed by him while in the service ; also Naval Stories, and Tales by a Country 
Schoolmaster. His political writings were edited with a preface, in 1840, by Theodore 
Sedgwick. 

Leggett had many warm friends, who deeply lamented his premature death, which cut 

short what had seemed the promise of a brilliant career. Bryant alludes to Leggett in the 

lines, 

"The earth may ring from shore to shore," <fec. 

Charles Fenno Hoffman. 

Chajiles Fenno Hoffmaj^, 1806 , held in the last generation a 

conspicuous place in general literature. He founded the well-known Knick- 
erbocker Magazine, and published several volumes both of prose and verse, 
and was one of the notabilities of New York city, social and literary. Since 
1850, mental disorder has kept him in complete retirement from the world. 

Hoffman is a native and a resident of New York city. He graduated at Columbia Col- 
lege, and studied law, but abandoned it for literature. He wrote a number of novels and 
tales : Wild Scenes in Forest and Prairie ; A Winter in the West ; Greyslaer, &c., and sev- 
eral collections of poems, among them the Vigil of Faith, Lays of the Hudson, Love's Calen- 
dar ; also a number of popular songs, such as Rosalie Clare, Sparkling and Bright, The 
Myrtle and Steel. In 1833, he established the well-known Knickerbocker Magazine ; sub- 
sequently he was editor of The American Monthly, The New York Mirror, and The New 
York Literary World. He also contributed to Sparks's American Biography the sketch 
entitled The Administration of Jacob Leisler. 

N. P. Willis. 

Nathaniel Parker AVillis, 1806-1867, was in his day a leader among 
the " lesser lights " of American Literature. He was identified with the 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 185 

New York Mirror and the Home Journal, at that time the two most popu- 
lar of our literary journals. He wrote poetry which found its Avay into 
most common school Eeading Books, and into all young ladies' albums. 
He wrote volumes of prose, filled with sketches of scenery and snatches of 
social gossip, which seemed to charm every reader. 

Mr. TTillis was a native of Portland, Maine, and the descendant of a well-known family 
of publishers. He studied at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Yale, where he was grad- 
uated in 1S27. The following year he undertook the editorial management of The Legend- 
ary, a magazine established by Goodrich (Peter Parley), and in the year after that The 
Token. In 1829 he established The American Monthly, which was merged in 1S31 into the 
well-known New York Mirror. Of this latter Willis and Morris were joint editors. 

From 1831 to 1835 Mr. Willis travelled in Europe. Mr. Rives, then United States Minister 
to France, appointed him attache, and this position gave him access to the upper circles of 
European society, which he turned to good account. In 1835 he married the daughter of 
General Stace, of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, and, returning to America, resided, until 
his wife's death in 1S44, chiefly at a beautiful place on the Susquehanna, which he named, 
after his wife, Glenmary. 

In 1844 he revisited Europe, and in 1846 married his second wife, 3Iiss Grinnell. The re- 
mainder of his life was passed chiefly at his well-known place, Idlewild, near Newburgh. 
In 1851 he made a tour for the benefit of his health through the South and the West Indies. 
Soon after his second marria;^e, in 1S46, he became associated with Morris in the publication 
of the Home Journal, to which he remained a permanent contributor. 

Willis represents a phase of American literature which was at one time extremely fash- 
ionable, but which has since lost its hold upon the popular mind. His works, which are 
too numerous and too miscellaneous to admit of complete enumeration, are chiefly of one 
class. They are easy essays or sketches, the droppings of society chit-chat, covered over 
with a thin varnish of fiction. Indeed, this outer coating is at times bo thin as to offer no 
concealment, and the real persons described may be recognized very readily by their friends 
or their enemies. He belongs, in the language of one of his critics, to the Venetian school 
of art, that is to say, he is less concerned with his thoughts than with his language, with 
what he has to say than with how he is to say it. Partly by his lively manner, partly by 
the personality of his sketches, partly by appealing to the popular taste for what is striking 
and bizarre, he succeeded in making himself at one time the most widely read author of his 
class in America. It is not risking much, however, to predict that the present and the 
coming generation, strengthened and deepened by the works of men like Whittier, Bryant, 
Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, will demand more substantial nourishment. Willis's 
poetry, in fact, is decidedly out of date. It is musical in structure, and delicate in senti- 
ment, but gravely deficient in force. 

The best known of his poetical works, perhaps, are his Scriptural Poems, Melanie, and Lady 
Jane. The principal of his prose works are Pencillings by the Way, Inklings by the Way, 
People I have Met, Life Here and There, Hurry-graphs, The Rag Bag, Famous Persons and 
Places, The Convalescent, etc. 

Willis also furnished the text to Bartlett's American Scenery, and other illustrated 
works. 

Willis's novels Tortesa, and Bianc^i Visconti (published together under the fantastic title 
of Two Ways of Dying for a Husband), and Paul Fane are not equal to his sketches. The 
author was too deficient in constructive art to elaborate a well sustaineil narrative. Dashes 
at Life with a Free Pencil, a collective edition of sketches of travel, is perhaps his spiciest 
work, and Rural Letters the most toned down. 

Willis's style is good in the structure of the sentence, but is often marred by the use of 
words and phrases coined by himself. This afl'ectation is greatly to be regretted in one 
who could be, when he chose, a perfect master in ease and finish. 
16* 



186 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



SPRING. 

The Spring is here, the delicate-footed May, 
With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers ; 

And with it comes a thirst to be away, 
Wasting in wood-paths its vohiptuous hours; 

A feeling that is like a sense of wings, 

Restless to soar above these perishing things. 

^ We pass out from the city's feverish hum. 

To find refreshment in the silent woods; 
And Nature, that is beautiful and dumb. 

Like a cool sleep upon the pulses broods ; 
Yet, even there, a restless thought will steal. 
To teach the indolent heart it still mast /erf. 

Strange, that the audible stillness of the noon, 

The waters tripping with their silver feet. 
The turning to the light of leaves in June, 

And the light whisper as their edges meet: 
Strange, that they fill not, with their tranquil tone, 
The spirit, walking in their midst alone. 

There 's no contentment in a world like this, 

Save in forgetting the immortal dream ; 
We may not gaze upon the stars of bliss, 

That through the cloud-rifts radiantly stream ; 
Bird-like, the prison'd soul will lift its eye 
And pine till it is hooded from the sky. 

TRENTON FALLS. 

Trenton Falls is rather a misnomer. I scarcely know what you would call it, but the 
wonder of nature which bears the name is a tremendous torrent, whose bed, for several 
miles, is sunk fathoms deep into the earth — a roaring and dashing stream, so far below the 
surface of the forest in which it is lost, that you would think, as you come suddenly upon 
the edge of its long precipice, that it was a river in some inner world, (coiled within ours, 
as we in the outer circle of the firmament,) and laid open by some Titanic throe that had 
cracked clear asunder the crust of this " shallow earth." The idea is rather assisted if you 
happen to see below yon, on its abysmal shore, a party of adventurous travellers; for, at 
that vast depth, and in contrast with the gigantic trees and rocks, the same number of wtll- 
ehaped pismires, dressed in the last fashions, and philandering upon your parlor floor, 
would be about of their apparent size and distinctness. 

They showed me at Eleusis, the well by which Proserpine ascends to the regions of day on 
her annual visit to the plains of Thessaly — but with the genius loci at my elbow in the 
shape of a Greek girl as lovely as Phryne, my memory reverted to the bared axle of the 
earth in the bed of this American river, and I was persuaded (looking the while at the 
feroniere of gold sequins on the Phidian forehead of my Katinka) that supposing Hades in 
the centre of the earth, you are nearer to it by some fathoms at Trenton. I confess I have 
had, since ray first descent into those depths, an uncomfortable doubt of the solidity of the 
globe — how can it hold together with such a crack in its bottom ! 

Most people talk of the sublimity of Trenton, but I have haunted it by the week togi-ther 
for its mere loveliness. The river in the heart of that feax-ful chasm is the most varied and 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 187 

beautiful assemblage of the thousand forms and shapes of running water that I know of in 
the world. The soil and the deep-striking roots of the forest terminate far above you, look- 
ing like a black rim on the enclosing precipices ; the bed of the river and its sky-sustaining 
walls are of solid rock, and, with the tremendous descent of the stream — forming for miles 
one continuous sxiccession of falls and rapids — the channel is worn into curves and cavities 
which throw the clear waters into forms of incouceivable brilliancy and variety. It is a 
sort of half-twilight below, with here and there a long beam of suUvShine reaching down to 
kiss the lip of an eddy or form a rainbow ever a fail, and the reverberating and changing 
echoes, 

" Like a ring of bells whose sound the wind still alters," 

maintain a constant and most soothing music, varying at every step with the Varying phase of 
the current. Cascades of from twenty or thirty feet, over which the river flies with a single 
and hurrying leap, (not a drop missing from the glassy and bending sheet,) occur frequently 
as you ascend; and it is from these the place takes its name. But the Falls, though beau- 
tiful, are only peculiar from the dazzling and unequalled rapidity with which the waters 
come to the leap. If it were not for the leaf which drops wavering down into the abjss 
from trees apparently painted on the sky, and which is caught away by the flashing cur- 
rent as if the lightning had suddenly crossed it, you would think the vault of the steadfast 
heavens a flying element as soon. The spot in that long gulf of beauty that I best remem- 
ber is a smooth descent of some hundred yards, where the river in full and undivided vol- 
ume skims over a plane as polished as a table of scagliola, looking, in its invisible speed, 
like one mirror of gleaming but motionless crystal. Just above, there is a sudden turn in 
the glen which sends the water like a catapult against the opposite angle of the rock, and, in 
the action of years, it has worn out a cavern of unknown depth, into which the whole mass 
of the river plunges with the abandonment of a flying fiend into hell, and, reappearing like 
the angel that has pursued him, glides swiftly but with divine serenity on its way. (I am 
indebted for that hist figure to Job, who travelled with a Milton in his pocket, and had a 
natural redolence of " Paradise Lost " in his conversation.) 

Much as I detest water in small quantities, (to drink,) I have a hydromania in the way 
of lakes, rivers, and waterfalls. It is, by much, the belle in the family of the elements. 
Earth is never tolerable unless disguised in green. Air is so thin as only to be visible when 
she borrows drapery of water ; and Fire is so staringly bright as to be unpleasant to the 
eyesight; but water, soft, pure, graceful water! there is no shape into which you can throw 
her that she does not seem lovelier than before. She can borrow nothing of her sisters. 
Earth has no jewels in her lap so brilliant as her own spray pearls or emeralds ; Fire has no 
rubies like what she steals from the sunset ; Air has no robes like the grace of her fine-woven 
and ever-changing drapery of silver. A health (in wine !) to water. 

Who is there that did not love some stream in his youth? Who is there in whose vision 
of the past there does not sparklp up, from every picture of childhood, a spring or a rivulet 
woven through the darkened and torn woof of first affection like a thread of unchanged 
silver? How do you interpret the instinctive yearning with which you search for the river- 
side or the fountain in every scene of nature — the clinging unaware to the river's course when 
a truant in the fields in June — the dull void you find in every landscape of which it is not 
the ornament and the centre ? For myself, I hold with the Greek : " Water is the first priu- 
ple of all things : we are made from it and we shall be resolved into it." 

George P. Morris. 

George P. Morris, 1802-1864, was intimately associated, in fame and 
fortunes, with Mr, Willis. They were jointly concerned in the New York 
Mirror and the Home Journal, and as such were for a time the arbiters of 



188 AMERICAN LITEBATURE. 

taste and fashion in literary matters. Mr. Morris was cMefly distinguished 
as a song writer. He produced also a very successful drama, Briar-Clifi) 
and an opera, The Maid of Saxony. 

Mr. Morris was born in Philadelphia, but went early to New York, and is known only as 
a New Yorker. He began in 1823, in connection with Woodworth, the publication of the 
Mirror, which was continued for twenty years, with distinguished success, and which had 
among its contributors Bryant, Halleck, Paulding, Leggett, HoSJmau, Fay, Epes Sargent, 
and, above all, Willis. After some discontinuations and some changes in form and name, the 
work reappeared in 1846 as the Home Journal, under the joint auspices of Morris and Wil- 
lis, and was for a long time the chief favorite with the reading public. 

Mr. Morris was one of the most popular song-writers of America. Many of his short, 
simple strains are so well known and so frequently quoted that the author's name is not 
even known by many who use his verses. Prominent among these short lyrics are My 
Mother's Bible; Woodman, Spare That Tree; Long Time Ago; Near the Lake where drooped 
the Willow ; think of Me. Besides his songs, Morris was, as already stated, the author of 
a successful drama, Briar-Cliff, and of an opera, The Maid of Saxony ; and he edited, in 
partnership with Willis, The Prose and Poetry of Europe and America. 

" Morris is the best known poet of the country, — by acclamation, not by criticism. He 
is just what poets would be if they sang, like birds, without criticism ; and it is a peculiar- 
ity of his fame that it seems as regardless of criticism as a bird in the air. Nothing can 
stop a song of his. It is very easy to say that they are easj- to do. They have a momentum, 
somehow, that it is diflBcult for others to give, and that speeds them to the far goal of popu- 
larity."— iV^. P. Willis. 

WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE. 

Woodman, spare that tree! 

Touch not a single bough ! 
In youth it sheltered me, 

And I'll protect it now. 
'Twas my forefather's hand 

That placed it near his cot; 
There, woodman, let it stand, 

Thy axe shall harm it not! 

That old familiar tree. 

Whose glory and renown 
Are spread o'er land and sea, — 

And wouldst thou hew it do'svn? 
Woodman, forbear thy stroke ! 

Cut not its earth-bound ties ; 
Oh, spare that aged oak. 

Now towering to the skies. 

When but an idle boy 

I sought its grateful shade; 
In all their gushing joy 

Here too my sisters played. 
My mother kissed me here ; 

My father pressed my hand — 
Forgive this foolish tear. 

But let that old oak standi 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 189 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend! 
Here shall the wild-bird sing, 

And still thy branches bend. 
Old tree! the storm still brave! 

And, woodman, leave the spot : 
While I've a hand to save, 

Thy axe shall haurm it not. 

NEAR THE LAKE. 

Near the lake where drooped the willow, 

Long time ago! 
Where the rock threw back the billow, 

Brighter than snow, 
Dwelt a maid, beloved and cherished 

By high and low ; 
But with autumn's leaf she perished 

Long time ago! 

Rock and tree, and flowing water, 

Long time ago ! 
Bee, and bird, and blossom taught her 

Love's spell to know ! 
While to my fond words she listened. 

Murmuring low! 
Tenderly her dove-eyes glistened. 

Long time ago! 

Mingled were our hearts forever. 

Long time ago! 
Can I now forget her? Never! 
( No, lost one, no! 

To her grave these tears are given. 

Ever to flow; 
She 's the star I missed from heaven, 

Long time ago ! 

Prosper M. Wetmore, 1799 , a prominent New York merchant, who has been largely 

connected with the literary interests of the city, was born at Stratford, Conn. He removed 
with his parents to New York, and entered a counting-house when only nine years old. All 
his literary work has been done in hours of leisure won from business. He began writing 
for the public in 1816, w^hen only seventeen years old, and continued to contribute to the 
periodicals of the day, in conjunction with Morris and others. In 1830, he published hia 
only volume, Lexington and other Fugitive Poems. He helped in various ways, however, 
to foster literature in that city during the early part of this century. 

Theodore S. Fay, 1807 , is a native of New York. He was Secretary of Legation at 

Berlin from 1837 to 1853, and after 1853 Minister to Switzerland. He has been a contributor, 
and was at one time editor, of the New York Mirror. His separate publications arc Dreams 
and Reveries of a Quiet Man ; The Minute-Book, a journal of travel ; Norman Leslie, a Tale 
of the Present Times ; Sydney Clifton ; The Countess Ida ; Hoboken, a Romance of New 
York ; Robert Rueful ; Ulric, or The Voices ; also, a series of papers on Shakespeare. Mr. Fay 
writes in a pleasant, genial style, always leaving upon the reader's mind the impreasioo 
that he has been in communion with a courteous and accomplished gentleman. 



190 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

Frederick S. Cozzens, 1818-1869, was a native and resident of New York city, and one of 
the most amusing contributors to the Knickerbocker and to Putnam's Magazine. He pub- 
lished The Sparrowgrass Papers ; Prismatics ; Stone House on the Susquehanna ; Acadia, or 
a Sojourn among the Blue Noses. He edited also The TTine-Press, a magazine devoted to 
tlie business of vine-planting and wine-making. Hurd & Houghton announce his complete 
works. 

James Hall, 1793-1868, was born in Philadelphia. He served in the war of 1S12, and in 
1820 went West and lived in Illinois until 1833, after which time he lived in Cincinnati. He 
occupied various civil offices, including that of Judge, and in the latter years of his life was 
engaged in commercial pursuits. During his long and busy life, he found leisure to write 
several works of a popular character. The following are the chief: Letters from the West ; 
Legends of the West; The Soldier's Bride, and Other Tales ; The Harper's Head, a Legend 
of Kentucky ; Tales of the Border; Notes on the Western States; Life of William Henry 
Harrison ; The Wilderness and the War-Path ; History of the Indian Tribes, written in con- 
nection with Colonel Thomas L. McKinney, etc. The work last named was a very costly 
illustrated work, embellished with one hundred and twenty portraits. The literary matter 
was contributed chiefly by Judge Hall. A complete edition of his other works, revised by 
himself, was published in 1856, in -t vols. 

SOLITUDE. 
And what is solitude? Is it the shade 

Where nameless terrors brood — 
The lonely dell, or haunted glade, 
By glossy phantasy arrayed? 

This is not solitude. 

For I have dared alone to tread, 

In boyhood's truant mood, 
Among the mansions of the dead 
By night, where others all have fled — 

Yet felt not solitude. 

• 

And I have travelled far and wide, 

And dared by field and flood; 
Have slept upon the mountain side, 
Or slumbered on the ocean's tide. 

And known no solitude. 

Richard Penn Smith, 1799-1854, was a native of Philadelphia, a grandson of Dr. William 
Smith, the first President of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Smith was a lawyer by 
profession, but occupied himself with literature. He edited The Aurora, from 1822 to 1827 ; 
published The Forsaken, a novel, in 1S31 ; A Guide to Philadelphia, in 1832 ; The Actress of 
Padua, and other Tales, in 1836. He was also the author of several Plays and Poems. Fif- 
teen of his Plays were produced on the stage in Philadelphia, and two of them were repro- 
duced in London. The Tragedy of Caius Marius was written by him for Edwin Forrest. 

Robert T. Conrad, 1805-1858, was a native of Philadelphia, and for many years one of its 
leaders in the world of letters. He was a lawyer by profession, and an eloquent pleader and 
speaker. He became Judge of the Court of General Sessions in 1840, and Mayor of the city 
in 1854. He wrote two tragedies, Conrad of Naples, and Aylmere, which were acted with 
Buccesa. He wrote Sonnets and other minor poems, which have been much admired. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 191 

Jason R. Orton, M. D., 1806-1867, was born at Hamilton, New York. He removed to New 
York city in 1850. He published Poetical Sketches, or Leisure Hours of a Student ; 
Arnold and Other Poems ; Camp-Fires of the Red Men ; Coufidentiiil Experiences of a Spirit- 
ualist, etc. 

William S. Mato, M. D., 1812 , is a native of Ogdensburg, N. Y. After taking his 

degree, he travelled in Spain and Africa, and elsewhere, and then settled in New York. 
He has written several romances of a wild and legendary character, which have had a decided 
success: Kaloolah, or Journeyings to the Djebol-Kumri, a fictitious tale of African adven- 
tures; The Barber, or The Mountaineer of the Atlas; Romance-Dust from the Historic 
Placer. 

Laughton Osborxe, ; a native of New York, and a graduate of Columbia Col- 
lege, of the class of 1827, is the author of several works, the most prominent of which are 
Sixty Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis, and The Confessions of a Poet, both powerfully 
written novels. The questionable morality of the latter wtis criticized by the Commercial 
Advertiser, of which paper Stone was then editor. To this Osborne replied by Rubeta, an 
Epic of Manhattan, with Illustrations done on Stone, 

Richard Henry Wilde, 1789-1847, distinguished equally as a lawyer and a man of letters, 
was born iu Dublin, Ireland. He came to the United States in 1797, settling first in Balti- 
more, and afterwards in Georgia. He became Attorney-General of that State, and repre- 
sented it in Congress most of the time from 1815 to 1835. After that he spent several years 
in Europe, engaged in literary researches. On returning, be settled in New Orleans, and 
was made Professor of Common Law in the Law Department of the University of Louisiana. 
His publications are Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, Madness, and Impris- 
onment of Torquato Tasso ; Hesperia, a Poem, published after his death. He had a Life of 
Dante partly finished. He was a frequent contributor to the Southern Review and other 
periodicals. 

A beautiful poem of his, beginning with the words, " My life is like the summer rose," is 
connected with a curious piece of literary mystification. After his poem had been for 
some time going the rounds of the papers, " Mr. Wilde was one day surprised to find in a 
Georgia newspaper a Greek Ode, purporting to have been written by Alcieus, an early Eolian 
poet of somewhat obscure fame, and it was claimed that Mr. Wilde's verses were simply a 
translation of this Ode, the ideas in both being almost identical. As Mr. Wilde had never 
heard of Alcsens, he was much puzzled to account for this resemblance of the two poems. 
At the suggestion of a friend, the Greek Ode was sent to Mr. Binney for examination and 
criticism. He at once, much to the relief of Mr. Wilde, pronounced it a forgery, and pointed 
out wherein its style differed from that of the classical Greek. It turned out afterwards 
that the Ode in question had been written by an Oxford scholar on a wager that no one in 
that University was sufiBciently familiar with the style of the early Greek poets to detect the 
counterfeit. To carry out this scheme, he had translated Mr. Wilde's verses into Greek." — 
Memoir of Horace Binney, Jr., hy Charles J. Stille. 

MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE. 

My life is like the summer ro.se, 

That opens to the morning sky, 
But ere the shades of evening close, 

Is scattered on the ground — to die ! 
Yet on the rose's huuiblo bed 
The sweetest dews of night are shed, 
As if she wept the wa^jte to see — 
But none shall weep a tear for me I 



192 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

My life is like the autumn leaf, 

That trembles in the moon's pale ray; 
Its hold is frail — its date is brief. 

Restless. — and soon to pass away! 
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, 
The parent tree will mourn its shade, 
The winds bewail the leafless tree, 
But none shall breathe a sigh for me. 

My life is like the prints, which feet 

Have left on Tampa's desert strand; 
Soon as the rising tide shall beat, 

All trace will vanish from the sand; 
Yet, as if grieving to efface 
All vestige of the human race, 
On that lone shore loud moans the sea, 
But none, alas! shall mourn for me! 



Henkt William Herbert, 1807-1858, better known as " Frank Forester," son of the Hon. 
and Rev. "William Herbert, was born in London, and educated at Cambridge. He emigrated 
to America in 1831. At first he was a teacher in a classical academy, but he soon betook 
himself exclusively to authorship. Herbert was an exceedingly voluminous writer. He 
produced a number of novels and novelettes, fugitive poetical pieces, some historical 
sketches, translations from the French, and also from ^schylus, and a long list of sporting 
works upon the game of the United States and British America, besides an immense num- 
ber of uncollected contributions to magazines and papers. Herbert has shown himself a 
thorough judge of field-sports, and a general writer of decided vigor and uncommon versa- 
tiUty. 

Charles W. Webber, 1819-1856, was born at Russelville, Kentucky, son of Dr. Augustus 
Webber. From his mother, who had a talent for drawing and for natural history, and who 
often took him as a companion of her artistic excursions, he imbibed an early fondness for 
the free, out-door life which marked his brief career. After the death of his mother, in his 
nineteenth year, he wandered into the Texan frontier, then in an unsettled condition, and 
became associated with Col. Jack Hays, Major Chevalier, and other noted Texan rangers. 
Several years spent in this wild life furnished him with the materials which he afterwards 
worked up into books. 

After returning to his home in Kentucky, Mr. Webber became interested in the subject 
of religion, and w^ent to Princeton, New Jersey, to study theology. This purpose, however, 
was soon abandoned, and he gravitated to New York as the centre, at that time, of literarj' 
enterprise, and embarked in literature as a profession. He had the usual experiences, alter- 
nately rough and gentle, of those who thus adventure, but was gradually winning his way 
to an assured position, when he was tempted to join the ill-fated expedition of Capt. William 
Walker, in Central America, in the winter of 1855-6, and fell there in one of the chance 
encounters that accompanied the enterprise. 

Mr. Webber's writings show much freshness, vigor, and individuality, and leave us to re- 
gret that he did not live to achieve something of a greater and more permanent value. 

The following are his principal works : Old Hicks the Guide, or Adventures in the 
Camanche Country in Search of a Gold Mine ; The Gold Mines of Gila, a sequel to "Old 
Hicks;" Shot in the Eye, adventures with the Texas Rangers; The Hunter Naturalist, a 
Romance of Sporting; Wild Scenes and Song Birds; Texan Virago; Wild Girl of Nebraska; 
Tales of the Southern Border ; Spiritual Vampirism, a take-off of sundry popular isms. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 193 

Benjamin Teftt, D.D., LL.D^ 1813 , a divine of the Methodist Church, was born at 

Floyd, New York, and graduated at the ^Vesleyan University, Connecticut, in 1835. Besides 
preacliiug in Bangor and Boston, lie has been Professor of Greek and Hebrew in Asbury 
Uuiversity, Indiana, President of Genesee College, New York, and has held other important 
appointments. He has written The Shoulder-Knot, or Sketches of the Threefold Life of 
Man; Memorials of Prison Life; Hungary and Kossuth; Webster and his Master-Pieces; 
Methodism Successful and the Causes of its Success. Dr. Teftt was for six years editor of 
the books issued by the Western Methodist Book Concern, and of the Ladies' Repository, 
Cincinnati, and h^is written a large amount both of prose and verse for this and other peri- 
odicals. 

Adam W. Thatcher, 1832-1864, was born at Boston, and graduated at Harvard, in the class 
of 1852. He studied law, but was engaged chief! j' in literary pursuits. He published A 
Poem before the ladma of Harvard; The Grotto Nymph; and seven Plays, which were 
represented with success. He was engaged also in the editorship of The Boston Evening 
Gazette. 

Albert Pike, 1809 , is a native of Boston. He studied for a time at Harvard, but left 

before graduating. The College afterwards, in 1859, gave him the degree of A. M. After 
teaching for a while in Massachusetts, he went South, and settled himself in Little Rock, 
Arkansas, where he practised law and published a newspaper. He fought in the Mexican 
war against the Mexicans, and in the late civil war he fought on the side of the Confed- 
erates. He published for a time The Memphis Appeal. Mr. Pike is by nature a poet, and 
had circimistances led him to a literary life, he would doubtless have made himself a distin- 
guished name in letters. His contributio'iis, both prose and verse, are mere incidents in a 
life given mainly to action. He published in 1834 Prose Sketches and Poems, written in 
the Western country; and, in 1854, Nugae, a Collection of Poems. The best known of his 
poems are the Hymns to the Gods, Ode to the Mocking-Bird, Lines to the Planet Jupiter, etc. 

Pliny Miles, 1818-1865, was a native of Watertown, N. T. After spending some time in 
mercantile business and in law, he turned traveller, and published in various forms the re- 
sults of his observations. Besides his Letters from abroad, under the name of Communipaw, 
he published Northurfari, or Rambles in Iceland ; Postal Reform ; Sentiments of Flowers ; 
Elements of Mnemotechny, etc. 

Edward Flagg, 1815 , was born at Wiscasset, Maine, and graduated at Bowdoin, in 

the class of 1835. After graduating he emigrated to Louisville, Kentucky ; taught the 
classics for a few months ; and then made a journey through Illinois and Missouri, writing 
a series of Letters for the Louisville Journal. These were published in 1838, in 2 vols., under 
the title. The Far West. He studied law, and practised for a time in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 
In 1842 he edited a paper at Marietta, Ohio, and while there wrote two novels, Carrero, or 
The Prime Minister, and Francis of Valois. In 1848, he spent two years abroad as Secretary 
to the American Minister at Berhn, Mr. Hannegan. In 1850, he went to Venice as United 
States Consul, and remained there two years. Venice, The City of the Sea, in 2 vols., ap- 
peared in 1853. It contains a history of Venice from its invasion by Napoleon, in 1797, to 
its capitulation to Radetzky, in 1849. 

Rev. Joseph H. Ingraham, 1809-1866, was a native of Portland, Maine. Among his earlier 
writings are several wild romances, Lafitte, the Pirate of the Gulf; Cai)taiu Kyd ; The 
Dancing Feather; Will Terrill, etc. Somewhat late in life he entered the ministry, .\fter 
that he publislu>d The Prince of the House of David, or Three Years in the Holy City ; Pillar 
of Fire; Throne of David. 

JOSN B. Jones, 1810-1866, was born in Baltimore. He has written a considerable number 

17 N 



394 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of books, some of which have been very popular : ATild "Western Scenes, two series ; The 
"Winkles, cT, humorous tale ; Eural Sports, a Poem ; Book of Visions ; The "Western Merchant ; 
Life and Adventures of a Country Merchant ; The Rival Belles ; The Monarchist ; Adven- 
tures of Colonel Vanderbomb ; The War-Path; A Rebel "War Clerk "-s Diary. 

Stltester JtTDD, 1813-1853, was a native of Massachusetts. He studied at Tale nzid in 
the Divinity School at Harvard, and was a pastor of the "Unitarian church in Augusta, 
Maine. Mr. Judd was the author of Margaret, a Tale of the Real and the Ideal, an illus- 
trated edition of which appeared in 1856. The outline drawings in this volume — by Darley 
— are declared to be the best of their kind that America has ever produced, while the story 
itself has been pronounced by Lowell to be "the most emphatically American book ever 
written." Besides Margaret, Mr. Judd has also published Philo, an Evangeliad, 1850; 
Richard Edney, 1850 ; The Church, a series of discourses, 1854; and he left in MS. a drama 
in five acts, called The "White Hills. 

Joseph A. Scoville, 1815-1864, Clerk of the Common Council of New York, was corre- 
spondent of the London Herald and of the London Standard, under the signature of " Man- 
hattan." He wrote Adventures of Clarence Bolton, or Life in New York ; The Old Merchants 
of New York City ; Yigor, a Novel, etc. 

Henry "Wikoff, , is a native of Philadelphia, and a lawyer by profession. He 

has published Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, biographical and personal sketches, including a 
visit to the Prince at the castle of Ham ; My Courtship and its Consequences ; The Adven- 
tures of a Rising Diplomatist. 

"William C. "Wallace, 1819 , a lawyer of New York city, was bom in Lexington, Ken- 
tucky, and educated at South Hanover College, Indiana. Besides contributing to Harper 
and other magazines, he has published Alban, a poetical romance ; The Saved and Lost, a 
prose and poetical work ; Meditations in America, and Other Poems ; The Liberty Bell, a 
poem. 

Charles "W. Thompson, 1798 , an Episcopal clergyman, born in Philadelphia, pub- 
lished several volumes of poems : The Phantom Bays, EUiner, The Sylph, The Love of Home ; 
and a volume of prose sketches. The Limner. 

"William J. Snelling, , besides contributing to the North American Review and 

other periodicals, has written Polar Regions of the "Western Continent ; and Truth, a New 
Year's Gift for Subscribers, (a satirical poem.) 

Edward Maturin, , son of Charles Robert Maturin, is a resident of New York, 

and the author of several novels, among which are Montezuma, the Last of the Aztecs; 
Bianca, a Tale of Erin and Italy; Benjamin, the Jew of Granada. 

Cornelius Mathews, 1817 , a native of New York, and a graduate of the New York 

University, is the author of many miscellaneous works. The most prominent of these are : 
Behemoth, a Legend of the Mound-Builders ; The Politicians, a comedy ; "Witchcraft, a 
tragedy; Moneypenny, a romance. Mr. Mathews has also contributed a number of articles 
to the New York Review, The American Monthly, Knickerbocker, and was a co-editor of 
Arcturus. Mr. Mathews is a strong advocate of an international cojjyright law. 

James McHenrt, M. D., , a resident of Philadelphia, was a contributor to the 

American Quarterly, and the author of several novels and volumes of poems, as. The "\Tilder- 
ness, The Insurgent Chief, The Pleiisures of Friendship, The Antediluvians. His poema 
were severely criticized in Blackwood'a Magazine and in the London Athenaeum. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 195 

George Lippard, 1822-1854, a native of Chester, Pennsylvania, wrote a number of sensa- 
tional novels: Bel of Prairie Eden ; The Monks of 'Wissahickou ; Blanche of Brandywine ; 
Paul Ardenheim, etc. 

"William A. Carruthers, M.D., 1800-1850, was a native of Virginia, and was educated in 
Washington College of that State. He wrote for the Knickerbocker of New York, and for 
the Magnolia and other Southern magazines. He published The Cavaliers of Virginia, The 
Kentuckians in New York, The Knights of the Ilorse-Shoe, and a Life of Dr. Caldwell. The 
latter part of his life was spent in Savannah, Georgia, where he practised medicine. 

George Henry Calvert, 1803 , was born in Prince George's County, Maryland. He 

is a great-grandson of Lord Baltimore, and also a descendant on the mother's side from the 
painter Rubens. " Mr. Calvert is a scholar of refined tastes and susceptibilitj', educated in 
the school of Goethe, who looks upon the world, at home and abroad, in the light not merely 
of genial and ingenious i-eflection, butwith an eye of philosophical, practical improvement." 
— Literary World. 

"Works: Schiller's Don Carlos, translated; Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, 
translated ; Scenes and Thoughts in Europe; Count Julian, a Tragedy ; A Volume from the 
Life of Herbert Barclay; Illustrations of Phrenology; Cabiros, 4 cantos; Social Science; 
First Years in Europe; Goethe, his Life and Works, an Essay; Dante and his Latest Trans- 
lators ; St. Benve, the Critic ; College Education ; Ellen, a Poem, etc. Mr. Calvert for several 
years edited the Baltimore American. Since 1843 he has resided at Newport, Rhode Island. 

"William E. Burtox, 1804-1860, was a distinguished comedian, of English birth, but an 
American by residence. He wrote a good deal for the magazines, both as contributor and 
editor, and published several volumes. The chief was Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor, 2 vols., 
large 8vo. 

Charles Bcrdett, 1815 , was a Xew York journalist, and the author of several works : 

Emma, or The Lost Found ; Adopted Child ; Trials and Triumphs ; Never Too Late ; Chances 
and Changes ; Marian Desmond ; The Gambler. 

AZEL Stevens Roe, 1798 , born in the city of New York, has written a considerable 

number of novels which have had a large sale. The following are the titles of some of them : 
I 've Been Thinking ; To Love and To Be Loved ; Time and Tide ; A Long Look Ahead ; The 
Star and the Cloud; True to the Last; How Could He Help It? Woman our Angel, etc. 

Jones Vert, 1813 , is a native and resident of Salem, Massachusetts. Ilis father was 

a sea captain, with whom he made several voyages. Mr. Very, on the death of his father, 
prepared himself for college, and was graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1836, and after- 
wards became Greek tutor there. " While he held this office, a religious enthusiasm took 
possession of his mind, which gradually produced so great a change in him, that his friends 
withdrew him from Cambridge, and he returned to Salem, where he wrote most of the 
poems in the collection of his writings." — Griswold. He published, in 1839, a volume of 
Essays and Poems. The Essays are on Epic Poetry, Shakespeare, and Hamlet. The poems 
are chiefly Sonnets. 

Frederick W. Thomas, 1811-1864, was bom in Charleston, South Carolina, where his 
father then published the City Gazette. In 1816, the father sold the Gazette and removed 
to Baltimore, in which city Frederick was educated, and where he began the practice of tho 
law. In 1S29, the father emigrated to Cincinnati, and established Tho Commercial. In 
1830, Frederick also wei.t to Cincinnati, and engaged with several other young men, Gallag- 
her, Shrevc, Perkins, and others, in literary pursuits. He wrote for the daily papers, and 



196 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

for the Mirror, Hesperian, and other magazines. His separate publications were The Emi- 
grant, or Reflections when descending the Ohio, a poem; Clinton Bradshaw, a novel, 
describing the career of a young lawyer ; East and West, and Howard Pinckney, also novels ; 
The Beechen Tree, a tale told in rhyme ; John Randolph of Roanoke and Other Public 
Characters. In 1841, he took oflBce in tlie Treasury Department, in Washington, under 
Ewing. In 1850, he returned to Cincinnati, and entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Church. He was afterward Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Alabama 
University. In 1860, he took charge of the literary department of the Richmond Enquirer, 
Virginia. 

Lewis F. Thomas, 1815 ,- brother of the preceding, was born in Baltimore. He removed 

to Cincinnati with the other members of the family, and studied law. He contributed to the 
Mirror and other periodicals ; engaged in editing several papers ; and in 1842, published 
Inda and other Poems, the first volume of poems issued west of the Mississippi. He wrote 
Osceola, a drama, and during the Mexican war published Rhymes of the Routes. 

Martha M. Thomas, , a sister of these two brothers, published a novel. Life's 

Lesson, in 1855, and has contributed to several magazines. 

E. S. Thomas, 1847, the father of Frederick, Lewis, and Martha, was a printer by trade. 

He settled in Charleston, S. C, where he opened a bookstore, and also published The Gazette. 
In 1816, he removed to Baltimore, and in 1829 to Cincinnati, in which city he established 
The Daily Commercial. Towards the close of his life, he published Reminiscences of the 
Last Sixty-five Years, a work in two volumes, containing sketches of men and things in the 
West. He was brother of Isaiah Thomas, mentioned in a previous chapter. 

Thomas H. Shreve, 1808-1853, was born in Alexandria, D. C, and was educated in the 
academy at that place. He received his business training in Trenton, N. Jersey, and after- 
wards engaged in merchandise in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1830, he removed to Cincinnati. 
In 1834, he was associated with Gallagher and Perkins in The Cincinnati Mirror. He con- 
tributed numerous articles to The Mirror, and afterwards to The Hesperian, the Western 
Monthly, and also to The Louisville Journal, and The Knickerbocker. In 1838, he removed 
to Louisville. There he engaged for a time in merchandise, but finally abandoned it for 
literature, and became assistant editor of the Journal. In 1851, he published Drayton, an 
American Tale, which was well received. 

Francis C. Woodworth, 1812-1859, noted for his children's books, was born in Colchester, 
Conn. He labored eight years as a printer, three years as a minister, and then devoted him- 
self to juvenile literature, writing a large number of pleasant and profitable story-books: 
Uncle Frank's Home Stories, 6 vols. ; Uncle Frank's Boys' and Girls' Librarj', 6 vols. ; Uncle 
Frank's Picture Gallery, 2 vols. ; Theodore Thinker's Stories for Little Folks, 12 vols.; Eng- 
land as it is; Scotland as it is; The World as it is ; and several other books for the young. 

Lucius Manlius Sargent, 1786-1867, was a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, 
class of 1804. He was one of the earliest and most earnest advocates of the temperance 
movement. Most of his writings were on that subject. He published Temperance Tales, 
which had a wide circulation; several Temperance Addresses; Dealings with the Dead; 
Hubert and Ellen, and other Poems. 

Samuel M. Schmucker, LL.D., 1823-1863, son of Dr. Schmucker the theologian, was a 
lawyer by profession. He was born at New Market, Ya. ; graduated at Washington College, 
Pa.; studied theology at Gettysburg; but afterwards applied himself to tlie law. His pub- 
lications are numerous, and are considerably varied in character: Errors of Modern Infidel- 
ity ; The Spanish Wife, a Play ; Court and Reign of Catherine II., Empress of Russia ; Life and 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 197 

Reign of Nicholas I. of Russia ; Public and Private History of Napoleon III. ; Memorable 
Scenes iu French History; History of the Four Georges; History of the Modern Jews; 
History of all Religions ; History of the Mormons. 

Daniel P. Thompson. 

Daniel P. Thompson, 1795-1868, has thrown a glamour over the his- 
tory of Vermont by a number of historical novels descriptive of life as it 
was in that State two or three generations back. 

« Mr. Thompson wrote the following works : May Martin, or The Money Diggers, a prize 
Btory ; The Green Mountain Boys, a story embodying some of the most interesting traditions 
of Vermont ; Locke Amsden, or The Schoolmaster, giving a picture of his own experience 
" boarding round ; " The Rangers, or The Tory's Daughter, a story giving a picture of 
Vermont in the times of the Revolution. 

Mr. Thompson was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father, not succeeding in 
Charlestown, withdrew to a wild farm in the town of Berlin, Vermont, where the family 
lived as pioneers, remote from schools, churches, and books. When Daniel was at the age of 
sixteen, a spring freshet, which brought down upon the flood the wrecks of mills and other 
buildings, brought among the floating timbers a chance volume, thoroughly soaked. The 
young pioneer, thirsty for knowledge, seized the prize, carefully dried the leaves, and after- 
wards eagerly devoured the contents. It was a volume of poetry, and was his first intro- 
duction to English literature. It only increased the longing which he already felt to get an 
education. By self-denial and thrift as a youngfarmer, and as a teacher of the district school, 
he gradually laid up money to pay his expenses in college, and entering Middlebury, grad- 
uated in 1820. After graduation, he taught for some time as private tutor in a family in 
Virginia. After three or four years pleasantly spent in this manner, he returned to Ver- 
mont, and opened a law oflBce in Montpelier. He held several public oflaces, and was much 
respected. 

Miss Leslie. 

Eliza Leslie, 1787-1857, was the sister of Leslie the artist, and was by 
birth and social position brought into terms of intimacy with Adams, Jef- 
ferson, and the other men of note who lived in the early part of the pres- 
ent century. She held a conspicuous rank as a writer, and was particularly 
happy as a satirist of social affectations and of pretence and vulgarity of 
every kind. Her story of Mrs. Washington Potts is worthy of Dickens. 

For further information in regard to Miss Leslie, and as a specimen of her style of writing, 
I give below a sketch of her life, written by herself, at my request, in 1851, for my work on 
" The Female Prose Writers of America." 

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I was born in Philadelphia, at the corner of Market and Second Streets, on the 15th of 
November, 1787, and was baptized in Christ Church by Bishop White. 

Both of my parents were natives of Cecil County, Maryland, also the birthplace of my 
grandfathers and grandmothers on each side. My great-grandfuthor, Robert Leslie, was a 
Scotchman. He came to settle in America about the year 1745 or '46, and bought a farm on 
North-East River, nearly opposite to the insulated hill called Maiden's Mountain. I have 
been at the place. My maternal great-grandfather was a Swede named Janseu. So I have 
no English blood in mo. 

My father was a man of considerable natural gcniiis, and much self-taught knowledge; 
particularly in natural philosophy and iu mechanics. Ho wan also a good draughtsman, 

17* 



198 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and a ready writer on scientific subjects ; and in his familiar letters, and in his conversation, 
there was evidence of a most entertaining vein of humor, with extraordinary powers of 
description. He had an excellent ear for music ; and without any regular instruction, he 
played well on the flute aud violin. I remember, at this day, many fine Scottish airs that 
I have never seen in print, and which my father had learned in his boyhood from his Scot- 
tish grandsire, who was a good singer. My mother was a handsome woman, of excellent 
sense, very amusing, and a first-rate housewife. 

Soon after their marriage, my parents removed from Elkton to Philadelphia, where my 
father commenced business as a watchmaker. He had great success. Philadelphia was 
then the seat of the Federal government ; and he soon obtained the custom of the principal 
people in the place, including that of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, the two last becom- 
ing his warm personal friends. There is a freemasonry in men of genius which makes 
them find out each other immediately. It was by Mr. Jefferson's recommendation that my 
father was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. To Dr. Franklin he 
suggested an improvement in lightning-rods, — gilding the points to prevent them i-usting, 
— that was immediately, and afterwards universally adopted. 

Among my father's familiar visitors were Robert Patterson, long afterwards President of 
the Mint ; Charles Wilson Peale, who painted the men of the Revolution, and founded the 
noble museum called by his name ; John Vaughan, and Matthew Carey. 

When I was about five years old, ray father went to England with the intention of engag- 
ing in the exportation of clocks and watches to Philadelphia, having recently taken into 
partnership Isaac Price, of this city. We arrived in London in June, 1793, after an old- 
fashioned voyage of six weeks. We lived in England about six yeai-s and a half, when the 
death of my father's partner in Philadelphia obliged us to return home. An extraordinary 
circumstance compelled our ship to go into Lisbon, and detained us there from November 
till March ; and we did not finish our voyage and arrive in Philadelphia till May. The win- 
ter we spent in our Lisbon lodgings was very uncomfortable, but very amusing. 

After we came home, my father's health, which had long been precarious, declined rap- 
idly ; but he lived till 1803. My mother and her five children (of whom I was the eldest) 
were left in circumstances which rendered it necessary that she and myself should make 
immediate exertions for the support of those who were yet too young to assist themselves, 
as they did afterwards. Our difficulties we kept uncomplainedly to ourselves. We asked 
no assistance of our friends, we incurred no debts, and we lived on cheerfuUj', and with 
such moderate enjoyments as our means afforded; believing in the proverb, that "All work 
and no play make Jack a dull boy." 

My two brothers were then, and still are, sources of happiness to the family. But they 
both left home at the age of sixteen. Charles, with an extraordinary genius for painting, 
went to London to cultivate it. He rapidly rose to the front rank of his profession, and 
maintains a high place among the great artists of Europe. He married in England, and 
still lives there. 

My youngest brother, Thomas Jefferson Leslie, having passed through the usual course 
of military education, at West Point Academy, was commissioned in the Engineers, and, 
•with the rank of Major, is still attached to the army. My sister, Anna Leslie, resides in 
New York. She has several times visited London, where she was instructed in painting by 
her brother Charles, and has been very successful in copying pictures. My youngest sister, 
Patty, became the wife of Henry C. Carey, and never in married life was happiness more 
perfect than theirs. 

To return now to myself. Fortunate in being gifted with an extraordinary memory, I 
was never in childhood much troubled with long lessons to learn, or long exercises to write. 
My father thought I could acquire sufllcient knowledge for a child by simply reading "in 
book," without making any great eff"ort to learn things by heart. And as this is not the 
plan usually pursued at schools, I got nearly all my education at home. I had a French 
master, and a music master, (both coming to give lessons at the house ;) my father himself 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 199 

tanght me to write, and overlooked my drawing ; and my mother was fully competent to 
instruct me in every sort of useful sewing. I went three months to school, merely to learn 
ornamental needle-work. All this was in London. We had a governess in the house for 
the younger children. 

My chief delight was in reading and drawing. My first attempts of the latter were on 
my slate, and I w'as very happy when my father brought me one day a box of colors and a 
drawing-book, and showed me how to use thera. 

There was no restriction on my reading, except to prevent me from " reading my eyes 
out." And, indeed, they have never been very strong. At thiit time there were very few 
books written purposely for children. I believe I obtained all that were then to be found. 
But this catalogue being soon exhausted, and my appetite for reading being continually on 
the increase, I was fain to supply it with works that were considered beyond the capacity 
of early youth — a capacity which is too generally underrated. Children are often kept on 
break and milk long alter they are able to eat meat and potatoes. I could read at four 
years old, and before twelve I was familiar, among a multitude of other books, with Gold- 
smith's admirable Letters on England, and his histories of Rome and Greece (Robinson 
Crusoe and the Arabian Nights, of course), and I have gone through the six octavo volumes 
of the first edition of Cook's Voyages. I talked much of Tupia and Omiah, and Otoo and 
Terreoboo — Captain Cook I almost adored. Among our visitors in London was a naval 
officer who had sailed with Cook on his last voy.age, and had seen him killed at Owhyliee — 
I am sorry the name of that island has been changed to the uuspcllable and unpronounce- 
able Hawaii. I was delighted when my father took me to the British Museum, to see the 
numerous curiosities brought from the South Sea by the great circumnavigator. 

The Elegant Extracts made me acquainted with the best passages iu the works of all 
the British writers who had flourished before the present century. From this book I first 
learned the beauties of Shakespeare. My chief novels were Miss Bumey's, Mrs. RadclifiFe's, 
and the Children of the Abbey. 

Like most authors, I made my fii-st attempts in verse. They were always songs, adapted 
to the popular airs of that time, the close of the last century. The subjects were chiefly 
soldiers, sailors, hunters, and nuns. I scribbled two or three in the pastoral line, but my 
father once pointed out to me a real shepherd, in afield somewhere in Kent. I made no 
further attempt at Damons and Strephons, playing on lutes and wreathing their brows with 
roses. My songs were, of course, foolish enough ; but in justice to myself I will say, that 
having a good ear, I was never guilty of a false quantity in any of my poetry — my lines 
never had a syllable too much or too little, and my rhymes always did rhyme. At thirteen 
or fourteen, I began to despise my own poetry, and destroyed all I had. I then, for many 
years, abandoned the dream of my childhood, the hope of one day seeing my name in print. 

It was not till 1827 that I first ventured " to put out a book," and a most unparnass'an 
one it was — " Seventy-five receipts for pastry, cakes, and sweetmeats." Truth was, I liail 
a tolerable collection of receipts, taken by myself while a pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow's cook- 
ing-school, in Philadelphia. I had so many applications from my friends for copies of these 
directions, that mj" brother suggested my getting rid of the inconvenience by giving them 
to the public in print. An off^er was immediately made to me by Munroe & Francis, of 
Boston, to publish them on fair terms. The little volume had much success, and hiis gone 
through many editions. Mr. Francis being urgent that I should try my hand at a work of 
imagination, I wrote a scries of juvenile stories, which I called The Mirror. It was well 
received, and was followed by several other story-books for youth — The Young Ameri- 
cans, Stories for Emma, Stories for Adelaide, Atlantic Tales, Stories for Helen, Birthday 
Stories. Also, I compiled a little liook called The Wonderful Tnivellor, l>eing an abridg- 
ment (with essential alterations) of Munchausen, Gulliver, and Sinbad. In 18;$! Miuiroe & 
Francis published my American Girls' Book, of which an edition is still printed every yciir. 
Many juvenile tales, written by me, are to be found in the anniuils called The Pearl and 
The Violet. 



200 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

I had but recently summoned courage to write fiction for grown people, when my story 
of Mrs. "Washington Potts obtained a prize from Mr. Godey, of the Lady's Book. Subse- 
quently I was allotted three other prizes successively, from different periodicals. I then 
withdrew from this sort of competition. 

For several years I wrote an article every month for the Lady's Book, and for a short 
time I was a contributor to Graham's Magazine ; and occasionally, I sent, by invitatiun, a 
contribution to the weekly papers. I was also editor of The Gift, an annual published by 
Carey & Hart; and of TheTioIet, a juvenile souvenir. 

My only attempt at anything in the form of a novel, was Amelia, or a Young Lady's 
Yicissitudes, first printed in the Lady's Book, and then in a small volume by itself. Could 
I begin anew my literary career, I would always write novels instead of short stories. 

Three volumes of my tales were published by Carey & Lea, under the title of Pencil 
Sketches. Of these, there will be soon a new edition. In 1838 Lea & Blanchard printed 
a volume containing Althed Yernon, or the Embroidered Handkerchief, and Henrietta 
Harrison, or The Blue Cotton Umbrella. Several books of my fugitive stories have been 
published in pamphlet form, — the titles being Kitty's Relations, Leonilla Lynmore, The 
Maid of Canal Street {Maid is a refined and accomplished young lady), and The Dennings 
and their Beaux. All my stories are of familiar life, and I have endeavored to render their 
illustrations of character and manners as entertaining and instructive as I could ; trying 
always to " point a moral," as well as to " adorn a tale." 

The works from which I have, as yet, derived the greatest pecuniarj' advantage, are my 
three books on domestic economy. The Domestic Cookery Book, published in 1837, is 
now in the forty-first edition, no edition having been less than a thousand copies ; and the 
Bale increases every year. The House Book came out in 1840, and the Lady's Receipt 
Book in 1846. All have been successful and profitable. 

My two last stories are Jemigan's Pa, published in the Saturday Gazette, and The Ray- 
mounts, in the Saturday Evening Post. 

I am now engaged on a Life of Jolm Fitch, for which I have been several years collecting 
information from authentic sources. I hope soon to finish a work (undertaken by partic- 
ular desire) for the benefit of young ladies, and to which I purpose giving the plain simple 
title of The Behavior Book. 

Charles R. Leslie, 1794-1859, brother of the preceding, was born in London, but of 
American parents, and passed the greater part of his life in England. He rose to distinc- 
tion as a painter. Besides his works of ai-t, he is also the author of two valuable publica- 
tions : Memoirs of John Constable, and A Hand-book for Young Painters, in which latter 
he takes occasion to controvert many of Ruskin's views. Mr. Leslie's style as an art-critic 
is very agreeable. 

Mrs. Kirkland. 

Mrs. Caroline M. (Stansbuky) Kirkland, 1801-1864, held in her 
day a high place among the writers on domestic and social topics. She 
was a shrewd observer, and she expressed her observations with singular 
clearness and point. Among her works deserving of special commenda- 
tion is one called Fireside Talks on Morals and Manners. She wrote also, 
under the name of " Mrs. Mary Clavers," several works descriptive of pio- 
neer life in the West, in which she gave full play to the sense of humor 
with which she was largely gifted. 

Mrs. Kirkland was born and bred in the city of New York. After the death of her father. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 201 

Mr. Samuel Stansbury, the family removed to the western part of the State, where she was 
married to Mr. 'William Kirkland, an accomplished scholar, at one time Professor in Ham- 
ilton College. After her marriage she resided several years in Geneva, and in 1835 removed 
to Michigan; lived two years in Detroit, and six months in the woods sixty miles west of 
Detroit. In 1843 she returned to New York, where she lived till the time of her death, with 
the exception of a visit abroad in 1849, and another in 1850. Mr. Kirkland died in 184G. 

Mrs. Kirkland was first prompted to authorship by the strange things which she saw and 
heard while living in the backwoods. These things always presented themselves to her 
under a humorous aspect, and STiggested an attempt at description. The descriptions, given 
at first in private letters to her friends, proved to be so very amusing that she was tempted 
to enlarge the circle of her readers by publication. A New Home — Who'll Follow? 
appeared in 1839 ; Forest Life, in 1842 ; and Western Clearings, in 1846. These all appeared 
under the assumed name of " Mrs. Mary Clavers," and attracted very general attention. 
For racy wit, keen observation of life and manners, and a certain air of refinement which 
never forsakes her, even in the roughest scenes, these sketches of Western life were entirely 
without a parallel in American literature. Their success determined in a great meastzre 
Mrs. Kirkland's course of life, and she thenceforth became an author by profession. 

An Essay on the Life and Writings of Spenser, prefixed to an edition of the first book 
of the Fairy Queen, in 1846, formed her next contribution to the world of letters. The 
accomplished author appears in this volume quite as shrewd in her observations, and as 
much at home, among the dreamy fantasies of the great idealist, as she had been among the 
log cabins of the far West. 

In July, 1847, the Union Magazine was commenced in New York, with Mrs. Kirkland as 
sole editor. After eighteen months the magazine was transferred to Philadelphia, its 
name changed to Sartavis Magazine, and Mrs. Kirkland retained as a monthly contributor. 
This engagement she fulfilled for a period of two years and a half. Of all ihe brilliant array 
of contributors to that periodical, there was not one whose articles gave such entire and 
uniform satisfaction as those of Mrs. Kirkland. These articles were mostly in the form of 
essays on familiar topics, such as Yisiting, Conversation, Growing Old Gracefully, etc., and 
form really her best claim to a permanent place in literature. Among her later volumes 
may be named Holidays Abroad ; The Evening Book, or Fireside Tallcs on Morals and 
Manners ; A Book for the Home Circle, or Familiar Thoughts on Yarious Topics, Literary, 
Moral, and Social, etc. 

CONVERSATION. 

Conversation is a pleasure for which all men have a taste ; one which is never relinquished 
except by compulsion, or some motive almost as potent. The silence of monastic life is the 
highest triumph of asceticism; that of prison existence the utmost cruelty of the law. 
The sage loves conversation even better than the child, for the very desire of acquiring 
makes him anxious to impart. Joy prattles ; grief must talk or die ; both are eloquent, 
for passion is alwaj's so. A feeling too strong for words is agony ; if they be long withheld 
it becomes madness. The chattering of youth is the overflow of animal spirits by the 
stimulus of new ideas; the garrulity of age seems an effort to excite the fainting animal 
spirits, by recalling the ideas which once stimulated them. Letter-writing is an effort at 
conversation ; so indeed is essay-writing. Let us then have a little talk about talking. Our 
object shall be to show that we do not give it a due share of attention, or at least to inquire 
whether we do or not. 

Goethe advises that we shall at least " speak every day a few good words." Do we concern 
ourselves about this when we are making up the day's account? Did we begin the day with 
any resolves about it, as if it were a thing of consequence, or have wo inaundi-red on, drop- 
ping tinkling words about trifles, or evil words like firebrands, or words of gloom and re- 
pining, insulting Providence, or words of hatred, piercing hearts that love us ? Each day's 



202 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

talk is surely no trifle ; we can hardly help sowing the germs of many thoughts in a twelve 
hours' intercourse with our co-mates, in the ordinary duties of life ; and allowing our words 
a negative value, we rob our friends of all the good and pleasure that we might bestow and 
do not. 

There are those who have never even entertained the idea that under certain circum- 
stances it may become a duty to talk. They talk when they like, and when not moved by 
inclination, they sit mum, leaving the trouble to others. That it is sometimes a trouble to 
talk is very true ; the French have a proverbial saying which expresses thia : they say of 
such an one, that he " bore the expense " of the conversation. 

Two young girls together are said to be like the side-bones of a chicken, " because they al- 
ways have a merry thought between them." And truly the giggling which generally ensues 
when a few young ladies get together, would seem to justify the old riddle. It is hard to 
say ■whether what is said on these occasions is conversation or not. To settle the point it 
would be necessary to go into an analysis of conversation, which were foreign to our pres- 
ent purpose, as well as diflScult for want of material, since no one has ever reported what is 
said under cover of so much laugh. To count the bubbles on the surface of boiling water 
beneath a cloud of steam, were perhaps as easy, and as useful. But every age has it pleas- 
ures, and we must not quarrel with this. Sober days do not await our bidding. 

Ball-room talk is equally beyond our pale. Its ineffable nothingness defies us. Fortu- 
nately, conversation is not the characteristic pleasure of the ball-room. The West Indian 
lady understood this, who exclaimed impatiently to a friend of ours, who had wearied her 
by trying to find a subject on which she would open her lips — " Cha, cha ! I come no here 
for chatter, I come here for dance ! " Happy were it if her notion were generally adopted. 
The harp and violin discourse more excellent music than can be expected from unhappy 
beaux, who, not very well furnished with ideas at the outset, must belabor their beseeching 
brains for something to say to tea young ladies in succession, all of different disposition, 
character, and education, and probably no better fitted for extempore conversation than 
their partners. 

The faults and follies of our neighbors and friends afford, perhaps, the most fertile of all 
subjects for conversation, when it is at all spontaneous. The study of character is one of 
the pleasures of life, but we are not particularly fond of exercising it upon ourselves, or at 
least of divulging the results of our practice. As surgeons choose the lifeless body for their 
demonsti'ations, so we try our skill upon the absent, and, as he can neither resist nor reply, 
this is very pleasant and advantageous — to the operator, who, not being forced to defend 
his positions, may expatiate at will, and having set out with a general theory or proposition, 
may easily, by the aid of a little imagination, make out a consistent view of the whole case. 
One inconvenience attending the use of this class of material for conversation, is the danger 
that the person dissected may not relish our view of his case as reported to him by some 
good-natured friend. His vanity may hinder his appreciating our discernment ; he may 
mistake for spite or envy or unkindness the keen perception on which W3 pride ourselves; 
he may not be able to consider himself as an abstraction, in which light, of course, we con- 
sider him when we demonstrate upon him, and we may thus lose his friendship just as we 
flattered ourselves we understood him thoroughly. 

Then again the habit of discussing character in ordinary conversation is apt to be a little 
chilling, all around. It is hardly possible to feel q»iite at ease and to l)ehave unconstrain- 
edly, if we know that as soon as we depart we shall be coolly analyzed for the benefit of 
those who remain. We are not quite so confident of the impartiality and discernment of 
others as of our own, and we would rather not feel that every word and action of ours is 
being treasured up as material for future sketches of character. So that this style of con- 
versation, while it exercises the intellect, is likely to harden the heart, and instead of dif- 
fusing an affectionate confidence through social intercourse, will probably end in putting 
each individual secretly on the defensive. Some frigid soul devised the maxim, "Live 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 203 

always with your friend as if he might one day be your enemy ; " and those must have kin- 
dred notions of the spirit of society, who consider tho peculiarities and shades of character 
of their friends matter for habitual discussion. 

There is indeed one way of avoiding the obvious danger of this theme, — that of giving 
offence to the absent, — namely, by making our discussion the vehicle of praise only. But 
is not this apt to become a little tiresome? In some families most of the conversation with 
visitors — we can judge of nothing further — consists in eulogies upon absent members of 
the household or connections. Unhappily there is hardly enough disinterested sympathy in 
human nature to make this agreeable to persons who have not the advantage of belonging 
to these exemplary races. The perfections of those we love are a most fascinating subject 
for private contemplation, but they are hardly tho topic for entertaining our guests withal. 
Nor are the individuals eulogized in all respects gainers by this enthusiastic enumeration 
of their excellencies. Being human, they have probably still some remains of human im- 
perfection, and these will be very apt to come up in full size before the memory or imagina- 
tion of the listener, who is driven to seek a refuge for his self-love from the painful contrast 
suggested by so much virtue. On the Mhole, then, we conclude that personal discussion, 
even in this honeyed phase, is not very advantageous to the main end of conversation, as a 
sweetener of the soul and a cultivator of the social affections. 

Touchy people are to be dreaded in conversation. Their propensity is to find out, in the 
discourse of those about them, points of offence wholly impalpable to all but themselves, by 
a power like that of a magnet, which will cover itself with particles of steel where no other 
aflBnity could detect their presence. Woe to the good-natured, unsuspicious sayer of noth- 
ings, in such company. It will be hard to convince him that terrible insinuations have 
been discovered by unwrapping his gentlest meanings. Does he speak of somebody's kind- 
ness to the poor? Mrs. Sensitive is suddenly beclouded, for she remembers (what he does 
not) that she has just been inveighing against indiscriminate charity. Does he wish for 
rain? It is because he knows Mrs. Sensitive is depending upon fair weather for a party of 
pleasure. Does he express indignation at some instance of dishonesty? Why need he go 
otit of his way to bring to mind the defalcation of Mrs. Sensitive's cousin twenty years ago? 
If he venture upon any subject of interest, he is sure to touch upon a tender spot ; if he 
carefully adhere to generalities, he is reserving his better things until he has more agree- 
able company. It is astonishing to hear with what bitterness some people will dwell upon 
these constructive offences — crimes made by the law, as it were. A disposition of this sort 
is a fatal bar to the flow of conversation. Our ordinary ideas will not endure such sifting 
and weighing. By the time we have turned a thought round and round, to be sure that it 
has no ridge or corner of offence, whatever point it had is sure to have been worn off. We 
must leave the touchy person out of our select conversational circle, and we do it with the 
less regret, because he is almost sure to be found deficient in other requisites for compan- 
ionship besides good-humor. Intelligence, cultivation, and acquaintance with society are 
sure antidotes of touchiness, which is only one phase of egotism. 



Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. 

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, 1802 , has been for nearly fifty years 

one of our leading literary celebrities. She has written chiefly on social 
topics, dividing her attention between the instruction of the young and 
the discussion of the vexed question of domestic slavery. 

Mrs. Child was the daughter of Convers Francis, and was born at Medford, Mass. Sho was 
Bister of Rev. Convers Francis, D. D., Profi!s.s()r in Harvard University. She was cilucated 
chiefly in the public schools of her native town, and afterwards taught a private school in 



204 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"Watertown, Mass., -where she was the friend and fellow-stndent of Margaret Fuller. In 1828 
she was married to David Lee Child, a lawyer of Boston. Both survive, without children, 
and reside at Wayland, Mass. 

The beginning of her authorship was in this wise : She had been residing several years 
in Maine, remote from all literary associations, but was now on a visit to her brother. Rev. 
Convers Francis, minister of the Unitarian church in Watertown. "One Sunday noon, °oon 
after her arrival there, she took up a number of The North American Review, and read Dr. 
Palfrey's article on Yamoydeu, in which he eloquently describes the adaptation of early 
New England history to the purposes of fiction. She had never written a word for the 
press, — never dreamed of turning author, — but the spell was on her, and seizing a pen, 
before the bell rang for the afternoon meeting, she had composed the first chapter of the 
novel [Hobomok], just as it is printed. When it was shown to her brother, her young am- 
bition was flattered by the exclamation: 'But, Maria, did you really write this? Do you 
mean what you say, that it is entirely your own? ' The excellent Doctor little knew the 
effect of his words. Her fate was fixed : in six weeks, Hobomok was finished." — Griswold. 

From that time, 1824, now nearly fifty years, Mrs. Child has been known to the public aa 
one of our leading and most acceptable writers. Her publications have been numerous, 
and have been marked with great beauty and power. A desire to instruct and to inculcate 
truth is a prominent feature in her writings. She has accordingly written much for the 
young, and she began in 1827 The Juvenile Miscellany, the first monthly periodical for chil- 
dren issued iu the United States. Another feature of her writings is her happy talent for 
observation, by which she is enabled to clothe the common every-day occurrences with 
interest. 

Among her works may be named the following: Hobomok, a Tale of Early Times; The 
Rebels, a Tale of the Revolution; Philothea, a Romance of Greece in the Days of Pericles; 
A History of the Condition of Women of All Ages and Nations ; The Mother's Book; The 
Girl's Book ; The American Frugal Housewife ; Biographies of Good Wives ; The Family 
Nurse ; The Coronal ; Appeal in favor of tliat class of Americans called Africans ; Pieces in 
Prose and Verse ; Flowers for Children ; Fact and Fiction ; Memoirs of Madame De Stael 
and Madame Roland; Isaac Hopper, a True Life ; Letters from New York; Progress of Re- 
ligious Ideas through the Ages ; Autumnal Leaves ; Looking towards Sunset ; A Romance 
of the Republic. In 1841, Mr. and Mrs. Child assumed the editorship of The Anti-Slavery 
Standard, and after that time the subject of slavery engrossed a large share of her attention. 

'•Mrs. Child has a large acquaintance with common life, which she describes with a genial 
sympathy and fidelity, a generous love of freedom, extreme susceptibility of impressions of 
beauty, and an imagination which bodies forth her feelings in forms of peculiar distinctness 
and freshness." — Griswold. 

A STREET SCENE. 

The other day I was coming down Broome Street. I saw a street musician, playing near 
the door of a genteel dwelling. The organ was uncommonly sweet and mellow in its tones, 
the tunes were slow and plaintive, and I fancied that I saw in the woman's Italian face an 
expression that indicated suflScient refinement to prefer the tender and melancholy, to the 
lively " trainer tunes " in vogue with the populace. She looked like one who had suffered 
much, and the sorrowful music seemed her own-appropriate voice. A little girl clung to 
her scanty garments, as if afraid of all things but her mother. As I looked at them, a young 
lady of pleasing countenance opened the window, and began to sing like a bird, in keeping 
with the street organ. Two other young girls came ami leaned on her shoulder; and still 
she sang on. Blessings on her gentle heart! It was evidently the spontaneous gush of 
human love and sympathy. The beauty of the incident attracted attention. A group of 
gentlemen gradually collected round the organist: and even as the tune ended, they bowed 
respectfully towards the window, waving their hats, and calling out, " More, if you please l" 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 205 

One, ■whom I knew well for the kindest and truest soul, psissed round his hat; hearts were 
kindled, and the silver fell in freely. In a minute, four or five dollars were collected for 
the poor woman. She snoke no word of gratitude, but she gave such a look ! " Will you go 
to the next street, and play to a friend of mine? " said my kind-hearted friend. She an- 
swered, in tones cipressing the deepest emotion, " No, sir, God bless you all — God bless you 
all," (making a curtsey to the young lady, who had stept back, and stood sheltered by the 
curtain of the window,)"! will play no more to-day; I will go home now." The tears 
trickled down her cheeks, and as she walked away, she ever and anon wiped her eyes 
with the corner of her shawl. The group of gentlemen lingered a moment to look after her, 
then turning towards the now closed window, they gave three enthusiastic cheers, and de- 
parted, better than they came. The pavement on which they stood had been a church to 
them ; and for the next hour, at least, their hearts were more than usually prepared for 
deeds of gentleness and mercy. Why are such scenes so uncommon? "Why do we thus 
repress our sympathies and chill the genial current of nature, by formal observances and 
restraints. 

UNSELFISHNESS. 

I found the Battery unoccupied, save by children, whom the weather made as merry aa 
birds. Everything seemed moving to the vernal tune of 

"Brignal banks are fresh and fair, 
And Greta woods are green." 

To one who was chasing her hoop, I said, smiling, " You are a nice little girl." She 
stopped, looked up in my face, so rosy and happy, and laying her hand on her brother's 
shoulder, exclaimed earnestly, "and /je is a nice little boy, too!" It was a simple, child- 
like act, but it brought a warm gush into my heart. Blessings on all unselfishness ! on all 
that leads us in love to prefer one another. Here lies the secret of universal harmony; this 
is the diapason, which would bring us all into tune. Only by losing ourselves can we find 
ourselves. How clearly does the divine voice within us proclaim this, by the hymn of joy 
it sings, whenever we witness an unselfish deed, or hear an unselfish thought. Blessings 
on that loving little one! She made the city seem a garden to me. I kissed my hand to 
her, as I turned off in quest of the Brooklyn ferry. The sparkling waters swarmed with 
boats, some of which had taken a big ship by the hand, and were leading her out to sea, as 
the prattle of childhood often guides wisdom into the deepest and broadest thought. 

Mrs. Emily Judson — '^ Fanny Forrester.'* 

Mrs. Emily Judson, 1817-1854, became widely known, first by her 
contributions to polite literature, under the familiar name of "Fanny 
Forrester," and then by her self-denying labors as the wife of the veteran 
missionary, Adoniram Judson. 

Mrs. Judson's maiden name was Emily Chubbuck. She was born in the pleasant town 
of Morrisville, in the central part of New York. This is the " Alderbrook " so familiar to 
her readers. From Morrisville she went to Utica, to engage in teaching. While living at 
Utica, she made her first essays at authorship. These consisted of some small volumes of 
a religious character published by the Baptist Publication Society, and poetical contribu- 
tions to the Knickerbocker. None of these, however, attracted any special attention. 

The first production of her pen that was at all noticeable was a light article which, without 

any very definite design, she wrote under the us8ume<J name of " Fanny Forrester," to the 

"New York Mirror," — while on a visit to the city of New York. This was in June, 1844. 

The editor had the sagacity in this, as in several other instances, to perceive at ouce the 

18 



206 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

evidences of genius that appeared in this playful bagatelle, and by a warm and judicioua 
commendation, led the author to a continued, and, in the end, most successful exploration 
of the vein thus accidentally brought to light. A series of essays, sketches, and poems fol- 
lowed, of a brilliant character, which in 1846 were collected and published in two volumes 
under the title of Alderbrook. 

In the beginning of 1846, the memorable missionary Judson returned to America, to visit 
the churches. On coming to Philadelphia, he was directed to Miss Chubbuck as a suitable 
person to prepare a memoir of his lately deceased wife, the second Mrs. Judson. Miss Chub- 
buck, then resident in Philadelphia, cheerfully undertook the grateful task. Being thus 
thrown much together, a mutual affection sprang up between them, and the favored child 
of literature joyfully laid aside the laurels then fresh upon her brow, to go, as the wife of 
Dr. Judson, on a self-denying mission to the Burmans. They were married at Hamilton, 
N. Y., June 2, 1846, and soon after sailed for Burmah. The Memoir was published in 
1848. Dr. Judson died at Maulmain, in Burmah, in 1850. Soon after the death of her hus- 
band, Mrs. Judson returned to the United States. Her health soon began to decline, and 
on the first of June, 1854, after a lingering illness, she died at the residence of her brother, 
at Hamilton, Madison County, N. Y. 

Mrs. Judson's publications were Alderbrook, a collection of Fanny Forrester's Sketches 
and Poems ; A Biographical Sketch of Mrs. Sarah C. Judson ; An Olio of Domestic Verses ; 
How to be Great, Good, and Happy, a volume designed for children ; My Two Sisters, a 
Sketch from Memory. 
I The poem quoted below gives a touching page from her missionary life, 

WATCHDfa. 

Sleep, love, sleep! 

The dusty day is done. 

Lo ! from afar the freshening breezes sweep, 

Wild over groves of balm, 

Down from the towering palm, 

In at the open casement cooling run. 

And round thy lowly bed, 

Thy bed of pain, 

Bathing thy patient head. 

Like grateful showers of rain, 

They come ; 

While the white curtains, wavering to and fro. 

Fan the sick air; 

And pityingly the shadows come and go, 

With gentle human care, 

Compassionate and dumb. 

The dusty day is done, 

The night begun; 

While prayerful watch I keep. 

Sleep, love, sleep ! 

Is there no magic in the touch 

Of fingers thou dost love so much ? 

Fain would they scatter poppies o'er thee now; 

Or, with a soft caress. 

The tremulous lip its own nepenthe press 

Upon the weary lid and aching brow, 

While prayerful watch I keep — 

Sleep, love, sleep 1 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 207 

On the pagoda spire 

The bells are swinging, 

Their little golden circles in a flutter 

With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter, 

Till all are singing 

As if a choir 

Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing; 

And with a lulling sound 

The music floats around, 

And drops like balm into the drowsy ear; 

Commingling with the hum 

Of the Sepoy's distant drum, 

And lazy beetle ever droning near, 

Sounds these of deepest silence born, 

Like night made visible by morn; 

So silent, that I sometimes start 

To hear the throbbings of my heart. 

And watch, with shivering sense of pain. 

To see thy pale lids lift again. 

The lizard, with his mouse-like eyes. 

Peeps from the mortise in surprise 

At such strange quiet of the day's harsh din; 

Then ventures boldly out, 

And looks about. 

And with his hollow feet, 

Treads his small evening heat, 

Darting upon his prey 

In such a tricksy, winsome sort of way, 

His delicate marauding seems no sin. 

And still the curtains swing. 

But noiselessly; 

The bells a melancholy murmur ring. 

As tears were in the sky; 

More heavily the shadows fall. 

Like the black foldings of ^ pall, 

"Where juts the rough beam from the wall; 

The candles flare 

With fresher gusts of air; 

The beetle's drone 

Turns to a dirge-like solitary moan ; 

Night deepens, and I sit, in cheerful doubt, alone. 

Mrs. Alice B. Haven. 

Mrs. Alice B. Haven, 1828-1863, was at the time of her death one of 
the most promising young authors in the field of American letters. Several 
of her small volumes, written under the name of " Cousin Alice," form a 
part of our standard literature for the young. 

Mrs. Haven was born in the city of Hudson, N. Y. Her maiden name was Emily Bradly. 
While a girl at school, she sent a coutributiun, under the assumed name of Alice U. Lee, 



208 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

to Joseph C. Neal of Philadelphia, for publication in his paper, The Saturday G^azette. Mr. 
Neal was then in the prime of his days, and one of the acknowledged arbiters of taste ia 
literature. The successive pieces of his new contributor pleased his fancy, and led to a con- 
siderable correspondence. Finding out, at length, her real name, he made her an offer of 
marriage, which was accepted. She became a resident of Philadelphia, and her literary 
history thenceforward is connected with her life in that city. 

At the request of Mr. Neal, his wife retained the name of " Alice," by which he had first 
known her. 

In July, 1847, only a few months after her marriage, she was left a widow by the sudden 
death of Mr. Neal. In 1853, she was married to IVIr. Joshua L. Haven. She died in 1863, 
leaving a family of five children. 

Mrs. Haven had a fine fancy, a delicate perception of the beautiful in character or con- 
duct, and a rare gift for embodying her conceptions in attractive form. She was particularly 
successful as a writer for the young, and her efforts in that line, under the name of " Cousin 
Alice," are worthy of a permanent place in literature. 

The following is a list of her principal works: Helen Morton; No Such Word aa Fail ; 
Patient Waiting No Loss; Contentment Better than Wealth; All 's Not Gold that Glitters ; 
The Gossip of Rivertown, &c. 

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz. 

Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, 1804-1856, contributed largely by her pen 
to the amusement and instruction of the last generation. The two best 
known of her numerous productions were The Mob Cap, and Aunt Patty's 
Scrap Bag. 

Mrs. Hentz was a native of Lancaster, Massachusetts, a daughter of Gen. John Whiting, 
and a sister of Gen. Henry Whiting, United States Army. She was married in 1825 to Mr. 
N. M. Hentz, a French gentleman of varied talents, who was then associated with Mr. Ban- 
croft, the historian, in the management of a boys' school at Northampton, Massachusetts. 
Mr. Hentz afterwards became Professor in the college at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where 
they resided for several years. They lived subsequently in various Southern States, but 
chiefly in Georgia and Florida, and were engaged in teaching. 

Mrs. Hentz, besides her labors in the school-room, was an industrious writer, as is shown 
by the long list of her published works. Her first publication was the tragedy of De Lara, 
or The Moorish Bride, for which she received the competitive prize of $500. The following 
are her other principal works : The Western Wild, a Tragedy; Constance of Weidenberg, a 
Tragedy ; Aunt Patty's Scrap Bag ; The Mob Cap ; Linda, or the Young Pilot of the Belle 
Creole ; Rena, or the Snow Bird; Marcus Warland, or The Long Moss Spring; The Planter's 
Northern Bride, etc., etc. Her novelettes were very popular. It is said that 93,000 volumes 
of her stories were sold in three years. 

Mr3. Emma C. Embukt, 1806-1863, was the daughter of James R. Manly, M. D., of New 
York, and the wife of Mr. Daniel Embury, banker, of Brooklyn. She began at an earlj' age 
to write for the periodicals, chiefly for the New York Mirror, her contributions appearing 
under the name of lanthe. Although she never devoted herself to a literary life, she wrote 
much for publication, in the shape of tales, sketches, and poems, and her pieces were re- 
ceived with much favor. Many of her articles appeared afterwards in collected form. 
Among them may be named the following: Guido, and Other Poems; Blind Girl, and Other 
Tales; Glimpses of Home Life; Pictures of Early Life; Love's Token Flowers. Her latest 
volume, The Waldorf Family, appeared in 1848. It was a fairy tale of Brittany. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 209 

" If Mrs, Embnry never rises so high as some of our female writers sometimes do, no one, 
on the other hand, who has written so much, approaches her in the ability of writing uni- 
formly well. She seems to liave the faculty of never being dull. There is, too, a certain 
gentle amenity of thought and diction that never forsakes her, taking from the edge of 
what might otherwise be harsh, and giving a charm to what might be commonplace. If her 
stories are not deeply tragical or thrilling, they are always beautiful, they always please, 
they always leave the mind instructed and the heart better." — Female Prose Writers. 

Mrs. Frances M. (Berry) Whitaker, 1812-1852, contributed no little to the amusement 
of the public by a series of papers under the title of '"The Widow Bedott." She wrote 
chiefly for Neal's Gazette and Godey's Lady's Book. 

Mrs. Whitaker's maiden name was Frances Miriam Berry. She was bom at Whitesboro, 
New York, and spent most of her life there. She was married, in 1S47, to the Rev. W. W. 
Whitaker, of the Episcopal Church. Two volumes of her writings have been published. 
The Widow Bedott Papers, and Widow Spriggins and Other Sketches. 

Mrs. M.ART G. Horsford, 1824-1855, was a native of New York, a daughter of Samuel S. 
Gardiner. She was married in 1847 to Prof. Eben N. Horsford, Rumford Professor in Har- 
vard University. She wrote for the Knickerbocker, Lady's Book, and other magazines, and 
published a volume of Indian Legends and Other Poems. 

Mrs. Sarah C. (Edgarton) Mato, 1819-1848, was a native of Shirley, Massachusetts. She 
was the wife of the Rev. A. D. Mayo, a TJniversalist minister. Besides numerous contribu- 
tions to periodia-ils, and editorial labor of various kinds, she wrote The Palfreys ; Ellen 
Clifford, or the Genius of Reform ; Memoir of Mrs. Julia Scott ; and compiled The Poetry of 
Women, The Flower Vale. Spring Flowers, etc. 

Mrs. Julia H. (Kinnet) Scott, 1809-1842, was bom in the Talley of Sheshequin, Northern 
Pennsylvania, and after marriage, in 1835, resided in Towanda, Pennsylvania. She wrote 
many fugitive pieces for the periodicals. After her death, a volume of her Poems was pub- 
lished, with a Memoir by Miss Edgarton, afterwards Mrs. Mayo. 

Mrs. Mart Euzabeth Hewitt, , is a native of Maiden, Massachusetts. Her 

father, a farmer named Moore, dying when she was but three years old, she removed with 
the family in the following year to Boston, where she remained until her marriage with Mr. 
James L. Hewitt, a music publisher of New York city. She was afterwards married to Mr. 
Stebbins, of New York. She began writing for the Knickerbocker, under the signature of 
lone. A volume of her poems was published in 1846, called The Songs of our Laud, and a 
volume of prose in 1856, The Heroines of History. 

Susan Pinb.ui, , the daughter of Charles Pindar, a native of Russia, was bora at 

Pindar's Vale, near Wolfert's Roost, New York. She has written Fireside Fairies, or Christ- 
mas at Aunt Elsie's; Midsummer Fays, or the Holidays at Woodleigh; Legends of the 
Flowers, etc. 

Louisa Patson Hopkins, 1812, is a native of Portland, Maine, and a daughter of Dr. 
Edward Payson. She w;ia married to Prof. Albert Hopkins, in 1842. She is the author of 
several works, intended for the young: The Pastor's Daughter; Lessons on the Book of 
Proverbs; The Young Christian Encouraged; Henry Langdon, or What was I Made for? 
The Silent Comforter, a Companion for the Sick-Room. 

Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, 1813 , is a native of Providence, daughter of Mr. 

Nicholas Power of that city. On her marriage to Mr. John Winslow Whitman, a lawyer of 
Boston, she removed to Boston, and remained there until her husband's death, when sho - 

18* > 



210 AMERICAN^ LITERATURE. 

returned to Providence. Mrs. Whitman has considerable reputation as a poetess. She has 
published Hours of Life and Other Poems ; Edgar A. Poe and His Critics. Being proficient 
in the chief languages and literatures of Europe, she has contributed to Magazines and 
Reviews critical articles on European literature. 

Mrs. Ltdia Jane Peibson, , a daughter of William Wheeler, and a native of Mid- 

dletown, Ct., but for many years a resident of Tioga County, Pa., has contributed both in 
prose and verse to the Southern Literary Magazine, The New Realm, and other periodicals. 
Two volumes of her poems have appeared, Forest Leaves, and The Forest Minstrel. Her 
prose pieces have not been collected. 

Mrs. Sophia L. Little, 1799 , was daughter of Ashur Robbins, of Newport, and wife 

of William Little, of Boston. She was at one time a large contributor to periodical litera- 
ture. Her separate publications were, The Last Days of Jesus ; The Annunciation and Birth 
of Jesus ; the Betrothed and the Branded Hand ; Poems ; Pilgrim's Progress in the Last 
Days. 

Mrs. Julia L. Dumont, 1794-1857, whose maiden name was Corey, was bom at Waterford, 
Ohio. While she was still an infant, her parents, who were from Rhode Island, returned 
there, and her father died. The mother then moved to Greenfield, Saratoga County, N. Y., 
and there Julia grew up. She attended the Milton Academy, and taught school in 1811 and 
1812. In the latter year she was married to Mr. John Dumont, and went with her husband 
to Ohio, and thence in 1814 to Vevay, Indiana, where she remained the rest of her life. She 
published a large number of poems and prose stories in the Western periodicals, chiefly the 
Ladies' Repository, Cincinnati Mirror, and Western Literary Journal. A volume of these 
■was published by the Appletons, in 1856, called Life Sketches from Common Paths. 

Mrs. Hannah F. Lee, 1780-1865, was a native of Newburyport, but a resident of Boston. 
She published a number of tales and other pieces, which were A-ery popular. The following 
are the chief: Grace Seymour, a Novel; Three Experiments in Living; Elinor Fulton; 
Familiar Sketches of the Old Painters; Familiar Sketches of Sculpture and Sculptors; 
Luther and his Times; Cranmer and his Times; The Huguenots in France and America; 
Rosanna, a Scene in Boston; Rich Enough ; The Contrast, a Different Mode of Education; 
Stories from Life for the Young, etc. 

Mrs. Eliza (Buckminster) Lee, 1794 , was a native of Portsmouth, N. H., and a 

daughter of the famous preacher, Joseph Buckminster, D. D.. She wrote Sketches of a New 
England Village ; Naomia, or Boston Two Hundred Years Ago, a tale of the Quaker Perse- 
cution ; Walt and Valt, or The Twins ; Florence, the Parish Orphan ; Life of Jean Paul 
Frederick Richter; Memoirs of Rev. Joseph Buckminster and of his son Rev. Joseph Stevens 
Buckminster. 



III. HISTORY AND BIOORAPHY. 

Washington Irving. 

Washington Irving, LL. D., 1783-1859, is on the whole the brightest 
and the dearest name in the annals of American literature. He is almost 
equally known as a historian, and as a writer of tales and sketches, and in 
both departments he stands clearly in the first class. 

Irving was a native of New York city. He studied law, and was ad- 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 211 

mitted to the bar, but abandoned the profession and engaged with his 
brothers in commercial business. 

living's first publications of note were his contributions to Salmagundi, 
a semi-monthly sustained by himself, his brother William, and James K. 
Paulding. In 1809 appeared Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New 
York, the sketch of the first part of which was in part the work of his 
brother Peter. 

In 1819, Irving, then in England, was led to take up literature as a pro- 
fession by the failure of the commercial firm in which he and his brothers 
were partners. The result was the appearance of The Sketch Book, soon 
followed by Bracebridge Hall, and Tales of a Traveller. 

In 1826, at the request of Alexander H. Everett, then United States 
Minister to Spain, Irving went to that country and remained there until 
1829. During his stay in Spain he published The Life of Columbus, and 
The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada. In 1829 he returned to Lon- 
don as Secretary of the United States Legation, and soon afterwards pub- 
lished The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus, and The Alhambra. 

In 1832 Irving returned to America after an absence of seventeen years, 
and was welcomed with an ovation such as none of his predecessors had re- 
ceived. In 1839 appeared the Legends of the Conquest of Spain ; in 1849, 
Mahomet and his Successors. His subsequent productions are nearly all 
upon subjects connected with America : Astoria, 1836 ; "VYolfert's Roost, 
1855 ; Life of Goldsmith ; Life of Washington, 1855-9. 

From 1842 to 1846, Irving was United States Minister at Madrid. The 
remainder of his life was passed in quiet retirement at his residence, Sun- 
nyside, near Tarrytown, on the Hudson. 

Irving's character as a man and a writer is too well known to call for 
any but the briefest notice. As a man his geniality of disposition has be- 
come proverbial. Probably no other American ever met witli such a hearty 
welcome abroad from men of all classes and nationalities. During the 
twenty odd years that he passed in Europe, he had for his warm friends 
such men as Scott, Moore, Campbell, Byron, in fact nearly all the leading 
literary characters of the day. In his own country he was no less the idol 
of his times. 

As a writer, Irving may be safely pronounced to be the most popular 
of all American authors. His works are known and read by every one. Died- 
rich Knickerbocker, Sleepy HoUow, Dolf Ilcyliger, Ichabod Crane, Rip Van 
Wrinkle, have become household names and forms. No other creations of 
the imagination have taken such prominence in American literature. They 
are not so grand or so subtle as Hawthorne's, but they are more life-like, 
more genial, more generally comprehended. Irving as a historian is sub- 
ject to one grave criticism. He is too diffuse in hia treatment of the sub- 



212 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ject, and his style is at times altogether too florid. The descriptions of 
scenery and incidents are too highly colored for the sober pages of history. 
Taken all in all, however, he is still, as already said, the brightest and 
the dearest name in the annals of American literature. 

A uniform edition of Irving's Avorks has been published, in 15 vols. To these should be 
added A Memoir of Irving, with his Letters, in 5 vols., by his nephew, Pierre M. Irving. 

Jared Sparks. 

Jared Sparks, LL. D., 1794-1866, is justly considered one of the most 
eminent contributors to American history. His labors were partly edito- 
rial, and partly those of original authorship, and in both respects he is en- 
titled to a high rank. He is chiefly known by his American Biography 
and his editions of the works of Washington and Franklin. 

Mr. Sparks was a native of Connecticut. He was educated at Harvard, both in the colle- 
giate department and the divinity school, and was ordained a clergyman in the Unitarian 
church. In 1821 he was Chaplain to the House of Representatives. He was editor of the 
North American Review from 1823 to 1830, Professor of History at Harvard from 1838 to 
1849, and Prei?ident of the University from 1849 to 1853. At the time of his death (1866) he 
had in preparation a History of the American Revolution. 

Sparks's principal publications are the following : American Biography, 25 vols., 12mo (the 
Lives of Ethan Allen, Arnold, Marquette, De la Salle, Pulaski, Ribault, Charles Lee, and Led- 
yard, by Sparks himself, the others written by various parties at his solicitation and edited 
\)y him) ; Life and Writings of Washington, 12 vols., 8vo. ; Life and Writings of Franklin, 10 
vols.; Life of Governeur Morris, 3 vols.; Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution,. 12 
vols, (published under the authority of Congress) ; Correspondence of the American Revo- 
lution, i vols. ; Essays and Tracts in Theology, 6 vols. 

The faithfulness and accuracy with which Mr. Sparks's historical works were carried out 
have made his name famous in Europe as well as in his native country. His Washington 
alone cost him nine years of labor, including researches in the archives of London and 
Paris, and a personal examination of the Revolutionary State Papers of the United States 
and of the original thirteen States. Nor was he a mere collector and collator. Although not 
aiming at the high art of the classical historian, like Bancroft and Prescott, he has an hon- 
ored place among those who have written upon American history. His merits as an author 
would probably stand out in higher relief were they not to some extent overtopped by hia 
Btill greater merits as a dispassionate, laborious, and judicious investigator. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

The acts of the Revolution derive dignity and interest from the character of the actors, 
and the nature and magnitude of the events. It has been remarked, that in all great politi- 
cal revolutions, men have arisen, possessed of extraordinary endowments, adequate to the 
exigency of the time. It is true enough, that such revolutions, or any remarkable and con- 
tinued exertions of human power, must be brought to pass by corresponding qualities in the 
agents ; but whether the occasion makes the men, or the men the occasion, may not always 
be ascertained with exactness. In either case, however, no period has been adorned with 
examples more illustrious, or more perfectly adapted to the high destiny awaiting them, 
than that of the American Revolution. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 213 



John G. Palfrey. 

John Gorham Palfrey, D. D., LL. D., 1796 , is the author of 

various works, chief among which is, A History of New England under 
the Stuart Dynasty. 

Dr. Palfrey is a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard. He was for many years 
pastor of a church in Boston, and Professor in the Divinity School of Harvard. Since his 
resignation, in 1839, he has taken an active part in state and national politics, holding 
various state oflBces, and writing for the press. For a number of years he was editor of the 
North American Review, and contributed many valuable articles. He has published a large 
number of sermons and addresses. He has published in book-form. Lectures on the Jewish 
Scriptures, and Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. He is chiefly known, however, 
by the work first named, The History of New England under the Stuart Dynasty, in 3 vols^ 
8vo. This is a valuable contribution to American history, and is exhaustive of the ground 
that it covers. His articles in the North American Review are considered among the best 
that have appeared in that periodical 

Miss Sarah H. Palfrey, , daughter of the preceding, has published several 

interesting volumes, under the assumed name of E. Fonton. These are, Premices, a volume 
of poems; Herman, or Young Knighthood: Agnes Wentworth; Sir Pavon and St. Pavon ; 
and a story of some length in the Atlantic Monthly, called Katharine Morne, or First Love 
and Best. 

Rev. Coxvers Francis, D. D., 1796-1863, was a native of West Cambridge, Mass., and a 
graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1815. He was Parkhara Professor of Pulpit Eloquence 
in Harvard from 1S43 to 1863. His chief publications are the following: Errors of Educa- 
tion ; Dudlean Lectures at Cambridge ; Historical Sketch of Watertown ; Discourse at Ply- 
mouth ; Life of John Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians; Memoirs of John Allyu; Gamaliel 
Bradford, and Judge Davis. 

Dr. John W. Francis. 

John W. Francis, M.D., LL.R, 1789-1861, was a native of New 
York city, and for more than half a century one of its most distinguished 
ornaments. 

Dr. Francis was a leading Professor, first in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of that 
city, and afterwards in the Rutgers Medical College. As the colleague and equal of such 
men as Mott and Hosack, his position made him one of the celebrities of the city. Besides his 
professional eminence, he was a man of general culture, and his Discourses on various occa- 
sions were noteworthy specimens of literary taste and finish. Besides these, and numerous 
biographical sketches published in the public journals, he wrote an entertaining volume of 
historical recollections. Old New York, or Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years. His 
medical writings were numerous and are in high estimation. 

Caleb Sprague Henry, D.D., 1804 , was born at Rutland, Ma-ss. He graduated at 

Dartmouth in 1825, and studied theology in New Haven. He was appointed Professor of 
Intellectual Philosophy in Bristol College, Penn., in 1835, and moved to New York in 1837 
and established the New York Review, which he conducted until 1840. From 1840 to 1852, 
he was Professor of History, etc., in the University of the city of New York ; also, 1847-1850, 
Rector of St. Clement's. Dr. Henry has contributed a number of articles to the Church 



214 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Review and to the periodicals, and has also translated from the French Consin's Critique on 
Locke, Guizot's General History of Civilization, and an Epitome of the Philosophy of His- 
tory, and was associated with Dr. Taylor in the preparation of A Manual of Ancient and 
Modern History. He removed to Poughkeepsie in 1857, and afterwards was rector of an 
Episcopal church in Newburgh. His latest publications are a volume of essays, and a work 
published anonymously in 1860, called Dr. Oldham at Graystones, and his Talk there. 

William L. Stone. 

Coii. William Leete Stone, 1793-1844, for a long time one of the 
most conspicuous journalists in the United States, made several valuable 
contributions to the colonial history of New York, particularly that relating 
to the border wars between the whites and the Indians. His chief works 
in this line were A Life of Sir "William Johnson, A Life of Joseph Brandt, 
A Life of Eed Jacket, and The Poetry and History of Wyoming. 

Col. Stone was born at Esopus, N. T. He began at first as a printer, and then, at the age 
of seventeen, as a contributor, for a country newspaper. He edited various political papers, 
from 1813 to 1821, in Hudson, Albany, and Hartford, but from 1821 to 1844 he was editor and 
proprietor of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and in that paper he did the chief work 
of his life. 

Besides his labors as a journalist. Colonel Stone bestowed a good deal of time upon the 
study and elucidation of local colonial history, and the several works which he published on 
this subject are of great value as repositories of many now extinct traditions of Indian and 
border warfare. His other works, also, like those on the impostures of Matthias and Maria 
Monk, and similar temporary excitements, are more valuable now than at the time when 
they were written, for the reason that to the present generation these works are almost the 
only accessible soui'ces of information on the subjects named. 

Works : Life of Joseph Brandt, including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, 
2 vols., 8vo ; Life and Times of Red Jacket, being a Sequel to the History of the Six Nations ; 
A Life of Sir William Johnson, 2 vols., 8vo, completed by the author's son, W. L. Stone, Jr. ; 
The Poetry and History of Wyoming ; Uncas and Miantonomeh ; Letters on Masonry and 
Anti-Masonry; Letters on Animal Magnetism; Matthias and his Impostures; Maria Monk 
and her Awful Disclosures; Tales and Sketches ; Tips and Downs in the Life of a Distressed 
Gentleman, etc. 

William L. Stone, Jr., 1835 , son of the preceding, was born in New York, and grad- 
uated at Brown University, in the class of 1857. Besides completing the Life of Sir William 
Johnson, which Col. Stone had left unfinished, Mr. Stone has written a Life of his father, and 
re-edited several of his works ; he has also written A History of New York City ; Saratoga 
Springs, being a guide to the Springs, Hotels, etc. He is said to be engaged in A History 
of the Six Nations. 

Freeman Hunt, 1804-1858, was a native of Quincy, Mass. He removed in 1831 to New 
York, where he continued to reside until his death. While still a resident of Boston, he 
established The Ladies' Magazine, The Weekly Traveller, The Juvenile Miscellany, and pub- 
lished two volumes of American Anecdotes, Original and Selected. In 1839, Mr. Hunt pub- 
lished the first number of his famous Merchants' Magazine, destined to have a great and 
permanent success. In 1856-7, appeared The Lives of American Merchants. Both the 
Magazine and The Lives are invaluable repositories of statistical and financial information. 

Matthew L. Davis, 1766-1850, one of the intimate friends of the celebrated Aaron Burr, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 215 

published, in 1837, a Life of Burr, 2 vols., 8yo; and afterwards, The Private Journal of 
Aaron Burr, 2 vols. 

Grant Thorburn, 1773-1863, was famous as a seedsman in New York city. He was born 
in Dalkeith, Scotland, and emigrated to New York in 1794. He was a man of marked pecu- 
liarities, and not addicted to hiding his light under a bushel. He first gained notoriety 
as the hero of Gait's novel, Laurie Todd. Thorburn could sow words as well as seeds, and 
wrote several books worthj' of remembrance. The most thoroughly characteristic was his 
autobiography, entitled, Forty Years' Residence in America, or The Doctrine of a Particular 
Providence Exemplified in the Life of Grant Thorburn, Seedsman, written by Himself. 
Some of his other publications are Life and Writings of Grant Thorburn, prepared by Him- 
self; Fifty Years' Reminiscences of New York, or Flowers from the Garden of Laurie Todd ; 
Laurie Todd's Hints to Merchants, Married Men, and Bachelors ; Laurie Todd's Notes on 
Tirginia; Men and Manners in Great Britain, by Laurie Todd. 

Charles J. Ingersoll. 

Charles Jared Ingersoll, 1782-1862, wrote much on historical and 
political subjects, his chief work being A History of the War of 1812-15, 
between Great Britain and the United States, in 4 volumes. 

Mr. Ingersoll was a native and resident of Philadelphia, where for half a century he was 
a man of mark as a political leader. He was by profession a lawyer, but gave considerable 
attention to literature. His chief publications are the following: Chiomara, a Poem ; Edwy 
and Elgiva, a Tragedy, acted at the Chestnut Street Theatre ; The Rights and Wrongs, Power 
and Policy of the United States ; History of the War of 1812-15, between Great Britain and 
the United States, 4 vols.; and a large number of political and other pamphlets. To Mr. 
Ingersoll is conceded, on all sides, intellectual abilitj' of no common order. But the force 
of what he had to say was sadly weakened by his vicious style of writing, or rather by his 
utter neglect and contempt of style. "The quotations that we have made suggest a con- 
cluding remark as to Mr. Ingersoll's style. It is a rough, energetic style, not deficient in 
happy and vivid expressions; but we have rarely met with American writing more con- 
temptuous not only of English rules, but of the reader's respiratory convenience — the book 
is hard to read because of the uncouthuess of its forms." — London Athenarum. 

Henry D. Gilpin, 1801-1860, was a lawyer of Philadelphia. He ranked high in his profes- 
sion, and was the author of several valuable law works. He found time also to cultivate 
liteniture. Among his services in this line it may be mentioned that he wrote a considerable 
number of the Biographies of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence ; he edited The 
Madison Papers, published by authority of Congress ; he contributed to the American Quar- 
terly Review, North American Review, and Democratic Review; and he edited for several 
years, 1826-32, the first literary annual published in America, the Atlantic Souvenir, writing 
numerous articles for it. 

Richard Stockton Field, LL. D., 1803-1870, was a native of Whitehill, N. J. He was edu- 
cated at Princeton, and resided there all the latter part of his life. He was a lawyer, and 
rose to eminence at the bar; he was for a short time a Senator of the United States, and was 
Judge of the United States District Court of New Jersey. He took an active part in advo- 
cating and organizing a system of common schools for the State, and was President of the 
Trustees of the State Normal School from its organization, in 1855, to the time of his deiith. 
He published: The Provincial Courts of New Jersey; Contributions to the Collections of the 
New Jersey Historical Society ; and numerous valuable Addresses and Orations. 



216 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

William C. Rives, 1793-1868, was a native of Virginia, and a graduate of Hampden Sidney 
College. He studied law with Mr. JeflFerson. He took a conspicuous part in national poli- 
tics, as well as those of his own State; was for a long time a Member of Congress, both in 
the House of Representatives and in the Senate, and was twice sent as American Ambassador 
to France. He was a member of the " Peace Congress " of 1861, and, after the secession of 
Virginia, became a member of the Confederate Congress. Mr. Rives was a gentleman of 
liberal culture, and possessed the ability to have distinguished himself in the field of letters, 
if affairs of State had not called him elsewhere. He wrote The Life and Character of John 
Hampden ; The Life and Times of James Madison ; Discourse on the Uses and Importance 
of History; Ethics of Christianity; On Agriculture, &c. 

Mrs. Rives, wife of the preceding, was an author of considerable merit. She wrote Tales 
and Souvenirs of a Residence in Europe; Home and the World; The Canary Bird; Epitome 
of the Holy Bible. 

Samuel M. Jannet, 1801 , is a native of Loudon County, Va. He is a member and 

preacher of the Society of Friends, and besides preaching has given his attention a good deal 
to literature. He was appointed by President Grant in 1869 one of the superintendents of 
Indian affairs. He has written The Country School-House, a Poem ; The Last of the Lenape 
and Other Poems ; Conversations on Religious Subjects ; A Teacher's Gift ; Historical Sketch 
of the Christian Church during the Middle Ages ; Life of William Penn ; Life of George Fox ; 
and a History of the Religious Society of Friends, from its Rise to the year 1828, 4 vols., 8vo. 
This is his latest and most matured work, and is one of original research, constituting his 
chief claim to a permanent place in literature. 

ALEXANDER Slidell MacKenzie, 1803-1848, was a native of New York, and a son of John 
Slidell. In 1837, by act of legislature, Alexander added his mother's family name, MacKenzie, 
to that of his father. Mr. MacKenzie is the author of several works, the most prominent 
of which are: A Year in Spain, M'hich attracted much attention at the time of its appear- 
ance, and was warmly praised by Washington Irving; the Life of John Paul Jones; the Life 
of Commodore Decatur; and the Life of Commodore Perry. He assisted Washington Irving 
in the latter's Life of Columbus, hy examining Columbus's route, and contributing other 
nautical information. MacKenzie's biographical works are able, and the one on Commodore 
Perry has a decided historical value in settling the question of Perry's claims to the chief 
honors of the naval victory on Lake Erie. 

John C. Fremont, 1813 , was born in Savannah, Ga. He distinguished himself by his 

explorations in the extreme western regions of the United States, and he is familiarly known 
as "The Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains." His Narrative of the Exploring Expedition 
to the Rocky Mountains, and to Oregon and North California, was published in various 
forms ; and constitutes an important part of the literature of scientific exploration under- 
taken by the United States Government. 

Capt. Seth Eastman, U. S. A., 1808 , is a native of Brunswick, Me. He graduated at 

West Point in 1829. He was stationed at Fort Snelling and other places on the north-west- 
ern frontier, and came much into contact with Indian life and scenery. He made the Illus- 
ti-ations for the work published by Congress, on The History, Condition, and Future Prospects 
of the Indian Tribes. 

Mrs. Mary (Henderson) Eastman, 1818 , is a native of Warrington, Va. She is a 

daughter of Dr. Thomas Henderson, and the wife of Captain S. Eastman, both of the U. S. A. 
She accompanied her husband in his various services at Fort Snelling and other frontier sta- 
tions, and thus had the opportunities of studying the Indian character and customs, which 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 217 

she has employed to much advantage in her works. These are the following: Dacotah, or 
Life and Legends of the Sioux; Romance of Indian Life; American Aboriginal Portfolio, 
with illustrations by Captain Eastman; Chicora, and other Regions of the Conquerors and 
the Conquered ; Aunt Phillis's Cabin, a novel, intended as a reply to Uncle Tom's Cabin, by 
Mrs. Stowe. Of all the portraitures of Indian life and character that have been given to 
the public, none, probably, have come more nearly to the truth than those by Mrs. 
Eastman. 

Lorenzo Sabine, 1803 , a native of Lisbon, N. H., and a Member of Congress from Mas- 
sachusetts, has made some valuable contributions to historical literature: The American 
Loyalists, biographical sketches of adherents to the British Crown in the War of the Revo- 
lution; Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seuis, prepared for the Treasury 
Department at Washington; Notes on Duels and Duelling; Life of Edward Preble, written 
for Sparks's American Biography. Mr. Sabine has written also numerous articles for The 
North American Review, Christian Examiner, etc. 

George Wilkins Kendall, 1810 , a native of Vermont, removed in 1835 to New Or- 
leans, where he was editor foi-anumber of years of The New Orleans Picayune. In 1844 he pub- 
lished an account of the Texan Santa Fe expedition, 2 vols., 8vo. This book has had a wide 
sale and been highly commended on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1851 he also published a 
large volume, entitled The War between the United States and Mexico, with colored illustra- 
tions. Mr. Kendall was on General Taylor's staff during the entire campaign. 

Charles E. A. Guyarre. 

Charles E. Arthur Guyarr:^, 1805 , an eminent lawyer of New 

Orleans, has acquired distinction by his various contributions to the history 
of Louisiana. 

Mr. Guyarr6 is a native of New Orleans, and a descendant of one of the old historical fam- 
ilies of the State. He is by profession a lawyer, but has given much of his time to the cul- 
tivation of letters. He has held various civil offices, and was for several years Secretary of 
State for Louisiana. His works are : History of Louisiana (French Domination), 2 vols., 
8vo; History of Louisiana (Spanish Domination), 1 vol., 8vo ; Romance of the History of 
Louisiana; School for Politics, a Dramatic Novel; Influences of the Mechanic Arts on the 
Human Race, etc. Mr. Guyarrfi has also written several works in French on the history of 
his native State. 

Brantz Mater, 1809 , a native of Maryland, and a prominent lawyer of the State, 

■was one of the founders of the Maryland Historical Society. He was for two years United 
States Secretary in Mexico, and has published several valuable works upon that country : 
Mexico As It Was and As It Is; Mexico. Aztec, Spanish, and Republican ; and Observations 
on Mexican History and Archaeology. He is also the author of Captain Canot, or Twenty 
Years of an African Slaver, a scathing exposure of the horrors of the slave-trade, which 
attracted much attention at the time of its publication. 

Peter Oliver, 1821-1855, was a native of New Hampshire. During his brief lifetime he 
contributed numerous articles to the Church Review. After his death there was published 
from his MS., A Historical Review of the Puritan Government in Massachusetts, etc. The 
work was intended to show, in the greatest fulness of detail, the dark side of the Puritan 
regime. The style is clear, concise, and forcible. The author's views and statements, how- 
ever, have been severely criticized. He has been accused of prtyudico and inaccuracy. The 
controversy may be conuidered as not yet fully decided. 
19 



218 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Ellsha R. Potter, 1811 , a native of Kingston, R. I., and a graduate of Harvard, of 

the class of 1830, has done good sei-vice in the work of popular education, and also as a 
prosecutor of historical research. His publications are The Early History of Narragansett ; 
A Brief Account of the Emissions of Paper Money made by the Colony of Rhode Island; 
Questions on the Adoption of the Constitution and the Extension of Suffrage in Rhode 
Island ; Reports on the Condition and Improvement of the Public Schools of Rhode Island ; 
The Bible and Prayer in the Public Schools, etc. 

Rev. ROTAIi Robbixs, 1787-1861, was a native of Wethersfield, Conn., and a graduate of 
Yale, in the class of 1806. He was pastor of the church in Kensington, Conn., from 1816 to 
1861. He wrote Outlines of Ancient History ; The World Displayed ; and American Contri- 
butions to the English Language and Literature, being an addition to Chambers's History 
of the English Language and Literature. 

EuzA RoBBi>fS, , has written a considerable number of excellent school-books: 

Elements of Mythology ; Grecian History ; English History ; Scripture History ; Classic 
Tales ; Tales from American History ; Popular Lessons, etc. 

J. Daniel Rtipp, 1803 , was bom near Harrisburg, Penn. He has been an industrious 

writer on the subject of local history, and has translated many works from the German and 
the Dutch. The following are some of his original works : An Original History of the Re- 
ligious Denominations in the United States ; Histories of Lancaster, Bsrks, Lebanon, York, 
Northampton, Lehigh, Monroe, Carbon, Schuylkill, Dauphin, Cumberland, Franklin, Bed- 
ford, Adams, Perry, Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifllin, Centre, Union, Columbia, Juni- 
ata, and Clinton counties ; Early History of Western Pennsylvania, etc. 

James Savage, LL. D., 1784 , is a native of Boston, and a prominent member of the 

Massachusetts Bar. He contributed largely to the North American Review, and The New 
England Magazine, and was for a number of years President of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. In 1825 he published, with notes, John Winthrop's History of Massachusetts, from 
the MS. continuation discovered in Boston in 1816. His chief work, however, is a Genea- 
logical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, in 4 vols., 8vo. Upon this work the 
author expended twenty years of careful labor. The difficulties and obscurities to be over- 
come in its preparation justify the North American Review in pronouncing it "the most 
stupendous work on genealogy ever compiled." 

CoL. Samuel Swett, 1782-1866, was born in Newburyport, Mass., and graduated at Har- 
vard, in the class of ISOO. Col. Swett made a special study of the Bunker Hill battle, and 
most of his publications are on that subject: Sketches of the Bunker Hill Battle ; Who was 
the Commander at Bunker Hill? Defence of Col. Timothy Pickering against Bancroft's His- 
tory ; Original Planning and Construction of Bunker HUl Monument; Sketches of a Few 
Distinguished Men of Newbury and Newburyport. 

Benjamin B. Thatcher, 1809-1840, was born in Warren, Me., and graduated at Bow- 
doin, in the class of 1826. He studied law, but did not practise much on account of ill 
health. He published Indian Biography, 2 vols. ; Traits of the American Tea Party ; Indian 
Traits ; and wrote a good deal for the periodicals. 

Zadock Thompson, 1796-1850, was born at Bridgewater, Vt., and graduated in the 
University of Vermont, in which he was afterwards Professor of Natural History, etc. He 
published a Gazetteer of the State of Vermont; A History of Vermont; Geography and 
Geology of Vermont, etc. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 219 

Rev. Bichard Webster, 1811-1856, was born in Albany. He studied theology at Prince- 
ton, and was settled in the Presbyterian church at Mauch Chunk, Pa. He wrote a History 
of the Presbyterian Church in America, with biographical sketches of its early ministers. 

John W. Barber, 1798 , a native of "Windsor, Conn., has been an industrious historical 

collector. His principal publications are History and Antiquities of New Haven ; Connec- 
ticut Historical Collections; Massachusetts do. ; New York do.; New Jersey do. ; Virginia 
do.; Ohio do.; European do.; Religious Events from the Commencement of the Christian 
Era; Religious Emblems and Allegories ; Elements of General History; Incidents of Ameri- 
can History; Historical, Poetical, and Pictorial American scenes. In some of these works 
he has had the assistance of H. Howe, and of Elizabeth E. Barber. As may be inferred from 
the list here given, Mr. Barber's works do not belong to a very high order of literature. 

Samuel Hazard, 17S4-1870, a native and resident of Philadelphia, deserves honorable men- 
tion for his laborious services as a local historian and annalist. He published, 1828-18.36, 
sixteen octavo volumes of the Pennsylvania Register; 1839-1842, sLx volumes of the United 
States Commercial and Statistical Register; also. Annals of Pennsylvania, from 1609 to 16?2, 
an 8vo of 800 pages. By appointment of the Legislature, he printed the Pennsylvania 
Archives, from 1682 to 1790, twelve volumes. 

John Stilwell Jenkins, 1818-1852, a native of Albany, wrote several works of a biographi- 
cal character: Generals of the Last War with Great Britain; Lives of Patriots and Heroes 
of the Revolution; The Heroines of History; Lives of the Governors of New York ; Life of 
James K. Polk ; of Silas Wright ; of Andrew Jackson ; Political History of New York ; His- 
tory of the Mexican War; Pacific and Dead Sea Expeditions, etc. 



William Allen. 

William Allen, D. D., 1784-1868, President of Bowdoin College, is 
widely known to the reading public by his American Biographical and 
Historical Dictionary, the first work of the kind published in the United 
States. 

Dr. Allen was a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Harvard, and was President of 
Bowdoin College from 1820 to 1829. His Dictionary appeared originally in 1809. It has been 
revised and enlarged from time to time. The first edition contained notices of 700 Americans. 
The last, 1857, contains notices of 7,000. Dr. Allen assisted Dr. Bogue, of London, in his History 
of Dissenters, 1809, preparing for it the lives of the American ministers noticed in the work. 
Among his services to literature, one of special value, was a collection of more than 10,000 
words not previously found in any English Dictionary. Of these, 1,500 were contributed in 
18-16 to Worcester's Dictionary, 4,000 to Webster's in 1854, and 6,000 to the Revised Webster 
of 1864. Some of his other publications are Baccalaureate Addresses, Junius Unmasked, and 
numerous commemorative discourses. His chief claim to a place in literature, however, is 
his Biographical Dictionary, already mentioned, a careful and scholarly performance, which 
for half a century was almost our only representative in that department of letters, and 
which laid the foundation for the more finished structures which have succeeded it. 

John L. Blake, LL.D., 1788-18.57, a graduate of Brown University, was known chiefly aa 
the Principal of a Young Ladies' Seminary, and as the author of a series of popular school- 
books. During the latter years of his life, he devoted his attention to general literature, the 
results of which were given in his Family Encyclopa-dia, OCO ]>p. royal 8vo, and General 
Biographical Dictionary, 1100 pp. royal 8vo, both of which had a large sale. He wrote also 



220 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

eeveral small volumes for school libraries : Book of Nature Laid Open ; Wonders of the 
Earth ; Wonders of the Ocean ; Wonders of Art, &c. 

William Grimshaw, 1782-1852, was a native of Greencastle, Ireland. He emigrated to 
America in 1815, and lived the remainder of his days in Philadelphia and its vicinity. He 
wrote a number of school histories, which attained a good deal of popularity. History of 
England; of France; of Greece; of Rome; of the United States; of Mexico and South 
America, &c. 

John Frost, LL. D., 1800-1859, was born in Kennebec, Me., was graduated at Harvard, 
and appointed Master of Mayhew School, Boston. In 1828, he went to Philadelphia and 
opened a private school for young ladies. On the opening of the High-School, in 1838, he 
was appointed one of the original Professors, and he held the position until 1845, when he 
resigned. He made books almost without number, though he did little in the way of 
authorship. He was merely a compiler, and used the paste and scissors more than the pen. 
Yet some of his works had a large sale, and the number of them was prodigious. Tliose best 
known are Pictorial History of the United States, and Pictorial History of the World. He 
was a good scholar, and a man of very decided ability, and he might have attained high rank 
as a writer, but he deliberately preferred cheap compilation to original authorship. 

John W. Thornton, 1818 , was born at Saco, Me. He is a descendant in the 

seventh generation from the Rev. Thomas Thornton, of Yarmouth, Mass., who was a de- 
scendant in the seventh generation from John Thornton, Lord Mayor of York, England. 
Mr. Thornton has given considerable attention to genealogical studies and to the early colo- 
nial history of New England; Genealogical Memoirs of the Gilbert Family, in both Old and 
New England; Mementos of the Scott Family; Lives of Isaac Heath and John Bowles; The 
Landing at Cape Anne ; Ancient Pemaquid, an Historical Review ; The First Records of 
Anglo-American Colonization ; Colonial Schemes of Popham and Gorges. 

John F. Watson, 1780-1860, the annalist of Philadelphia, was born in Burlington, N. J. 
He was for some years a bookseller in Philadelphia, then cashier of the Bank of German- 
town, then Treasurer of the Germantown and Norristown Railroad. Ilis Annals of Phila- 
delphia, 2 vols., 8vo, are acknowledged on all hands to be a valuable work, showing careful 
original research. Besides this he published Historic Tales concerning the Early Settlement 
of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania; Historic Tales of the Olden Time concerning the Settle- 
ment of New York City and State ; Annals and Occurrences of New York City and State in 
the Olden Time. 

Samuel Willard, B.D., 1775-1859, a nephew of President Joseph Willard, was born at 
Petersham, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1803. After preaching for some 
years at Deerfield, he lost his sight and resigned his pastorate. Ho published The Deerfield 
Collection of Sacred Music ; Original Ilj-mns; Sacred Poetry and Music Reconciled, a collec- 
tion of hymns ; and several school-books. 

Joseph Willakd, 1798-1865, son of President Joseph Willard, was born in Cambridge, 
Mass., and was educated at Harvard. He published, besides several pamphlet addresses, The 
Willard Memoir, or The Life and Times of Major Simon Willard ; Topographical and His- 
torical Sketchesof the Town of Lancaster; Naturalization in the American Colonies, &c. 

Sidney Willard, 1780-1856, also son of President Joseph Willard, was born at Beverly, Mass., 
and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1798. He was Librarian of the College, from 1800 to 
1805, and a leading Professor from 1807 to 1831. He was Mayor of Cambridge from 1848 to 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 221 

1850, and frequently a member of the Legislature. He published Memoirs of Youth and 
Manhood ; also, A Hebrew Grammar. He contributed largelj- also to periodical literature. 

"William Willis, 1794-1S70, was bom at Haverhill, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in 
the class of 1S1.3. He studied law, and settled in Portland, Me., for the practice of his pro- 
fession. He published The History of Portland from its First Settlement; A History of the 
Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine; Genealogy of the McKinstry Familj-, with a 
preliminary essay on the Scotch-Irish emigration to America; also, several Addresses and 
Reports on historical subjects. 

RoBEUT C. WiNTHROP, LL. D., 1809 , a descendant in the sixth generation from the 

first Governor of Massachusetts, old John "SVinthrop, was born in Boston, and graduated at 
Harvard, in the class of 1828. He studied law with Daniel Webster; was a member of the 
Massachusetts Legislature from 1834 to 1840, and Speaker of the House for the last two 
years ; was a member of Congress from 1840 to 1850, and Speaker during the last two years ; 
and United States Senator in 1850-ol. He is President of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, and has published a large number of historical Addresses, delivered on various 
public occasions ; A Volume of Addresses and Speeches ; and Life and Letters of John Win- 
throp, the old Colonial Governor. 

Shearjashtjb SP0OirER,M.D., 1809-1859, was born at Brandon, Yt., and graduated at Middle- 
bnry College, in the class of 1830. He practised dentistry with great success in the city of 
New York. Besides some professional works, he published A Biographical and Critical Dic- 
tionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects, 2 vols., imp. 8vo ; Anecdotes of 
Painters, etc., 3 vols., 18mo. 

JoHX McMackie, 1813 , is a native of Wareham, Mass., and a graduate of Brown Uni- 
versity, in which institution he was tutor from 1834 to 1838. He has written A Life of 
Leibnitz; Life of Samuel Gorton; Life of Schamjl and Narrative of the Circassian War 
of Independence; Life of Tai-Ping-Wang, chief of the Chinese Insurrection. He has also 
teen a contributor to the North American Review, American Whig Review, etc. 

Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, 1790-1862, a clergyman of Hartford, Conn., wrote Lives of the 
Signers of the Declaration of Independence ; History of the United States ; Geography of 
the Chief Places mentioned in the Bible ; Family Sabbath Day 3Iiscellany, etc. 

BENJAMiy Drake, 1794-1841, was a native of Kentucky, and a resident of Cincinnati. Be- 
sides publishing a weekly family paper, Mr. Drake wrote several separate works: Life of 
Black Hawk; Life of Tecumseh; Life of Harrison; Tales and Sketches from the Queen 
City; Cincinnati in 1826; The Western Agriculturalist. 

George Copwat, 1820 , an Indian of the Ojibway tribe, was born in Michigan. He 

has been connected for several years with the press of New York city, and he has lectured 
extensively. Among his publications are the following: Recollections of a Forest Life; 
Traditional History of the Ojibway Nation ; Ojibway Conquest, a poem ; Copway's American 
Indian ; Running Sketches of Men and Places in Europe. 

Charles Campbell, 1807 , a native of Petersburg, Ya., and a graduate of Princeton 

College, has written Tl>e Bland Papers ; Introduction to the History of the Colony and 
Ancient Dominion of Virginia; Memoir of John Daly Burke ; Genealogy of the Spotswood 
Family. 

Louis Gatlord Clark, 1810 , gained considerable popularity as literary caterer for 

the New York Knickerbocker. He published a volume, Kuick-Knacks from an Editor's 
19* 



222 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Table, which was much admired for its wit and racy humor. — "Willis Gatlord Clark, 1810- 
1841, was twin brother of the preceding. They were born at Otisco, N. Y. Willis settled in 
Philadelphia, where he edited the Philadelphia Gazette. He contributed many articles, 
prose and verse, to the Knickerbocker. His poems have been published in a separate volume. 
His writings were once in high repute. A volume of his literary remains has been pub- 
lished, containing Ollapodiana, and other magazine articles. 

Cornelius A. Logan, lSOO-1853, was born in Baltimore, and educated at St. Mary's College, 
in that city. He had a roving disposition, and made several voyages as supercargo of mer- 
chant vessels. Becoming tired of this kind of life, he turned his attention to literature. He 
assisted for three years in the editorial department of the Baltimore Morning Chronicle, 
and then joined William Leggett in an attempt to establish a penny paper in New York. 
This failing, he went to Philadelphia, and adopted the profession of an actor, and met with 
decided success as a comedian. He wrote many plays : The Wag of Maine ; The Wool Dealer ; 
Yankee Land ; Removing the Deposits ; An Hundred Years Hence, etc. He wrote also many 
poems and prose tales for the periodicals. The last thirteen years of his life were spent in 
Cincinnati. 

RuFUS Dawes, 1803-1859, was a native of Boston, and a lawyer by profession, though he 
never practised. He published: The Yalley of the Nashaway and other Poems; Athenia 
of Damascus; Geraldine; Nix's Mate, an Historical Romance, etc. Mr. Dawes was a Swe- 
denborgian, and frequently preached in the pulpits of that denomination. 

Charles Edward Lester, 1815 , is a native of New London, Conn. He was for a time 

United States Consul at Genoa. He has written My Consulship; Samuel Houston and his 
Republic; Biographical Sketches of American Artists; Condition and Fate of England ; 
Glory and Shame of England ; The Artist, Merchant, and Statesman ; The Mountain Wild 
Flower, a Memoir of Mary Ann Price, etc. He has also translated several works from the 
Italian. 



IV. WRITERS ON LITERATURE AND CRITICISM. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Ealph WAiiDO Emerson, 1803 , is a conspicuous figure in the 

literature of the period now under consideration. 

Mr. Emerson is a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard. He 
was ordained as a minister to a Unitarian church in Boston, but in conse- 
quence of the peculiarity in his views he in 1832 sundered the connection, 
and has since that time given himself up to the investigation of metaphys- 
ical and moral questions. 

Mr. Emerson is an independent thinker, and is remarkable equally for 
the originality and the subtlety of his thoughts, and for his power of 
expression. In the latter respect he is indeed an enigma. Nobody can 
express himself more clearly than Mr. Emerson, when he chooses. But 
when he does not choose, nobody can more successfully hide his meaning, 
if he has any, under a show of plain words and'simple constructions. The 
Sphinx is not a greater mystery than are some of Mr. Emerson's delphic 




J\y{/\/a^<^ (^^ 



^V\y 



Reproduced by permission of Houghton, Mifflm & Co. 
Publishers of Ennerson's Works. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 223 

sayings, though clothed in words and plirases as plain as Blair's Sermons, 
or Murray's English Grammar. 

Mr. Emerson is a transcendentalist of the most advanced school; and 
hLs views on the higher subjects of mind and spirit are so far removed from 
the common apprehension, that it is not easy to formulate them, or to say 
precisely what he does think and teach. 

As an essayist and a lecturer on more familiar subjects, he is singularly 
attractive. His method is, not to reason, in the ordinary sense of the term, 
but to utter truth oracularly, leaving it to make its own appeal to the in- 
tuitions of the reader or hearer. 

Mr. Emerson has visited various parts of the United States on invitation 
to deliver lectures or addresses, and he has visited England twice, the 
second time on a professional lecturing tour. But for the most part he has 
lived in seclusion at Concord, Mass., to wliich phice his admirers have 
resorted, as devotees to a shrine. Most of his peculiar views were given to 
the world in The Dial, a magazine begun in 1840 and continued for four 
years, and devoted to the discussion of disputed points in religion, philoso- 
phy, literature, and history. 

A uniform edition of his works has been printed in 6 vols., as follows : 
Essays, 2 vols. ; Eepresentative Men, 1 vol. ; English Traits, 1 vol. ; Lec- 
tures and Addresses, 1 vol. ; Poems, 1 vol. 

The English Traits was published after his return from his lecturing tour 
in England, and contains his impressions of the country and its people. 
It has been one of his most popular books. The volumes of Essays and of 
Lectures are exceedingly various in style and subject, but contain in frag- 
mentary form all those peculiarities of his style, as a thinker and a writer, 
which have given him such a wide celebrity. The same is true to a certain 
extent of his Poems. Some of these have, in form and fiuLsh, all the brilliance 
and the exactness of the diamond, — hard, bright, and cutting. It would be 
difficult to find, outside of the Greek Anthology, anything more absolutely 
faultless than some of these little gems. Others again belong to the order 
of the Sphinx, and may be safely commended to those who are fond of rid- 
dles. The most important volume in the series is that which contains Rep- 
resentative Men. In this, under six great heads, Mr. Emerson, more nearly 
than in any of his other works, gives expression to his system jus a whole. 
The topics are, 1. Plato, the Philosopher; 2. Swcdenborg, the Mystic; 3. 
Montaigne, the Skeptic; 4. Shakespeare, the Poet; 5. Napoleon, the Man 
of the World ; 6. Goethe, the Writer. The mental portraits sketched under 
these six heads give us Mr. Emerson himself, so far ;is lie is capable of being 
formulated at all. 

"A more independent and original thinker can nowhere in this ago bo found." — 
Blackwood, 



224 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"It is better for a man to tell his story, as Mr. Irving, Mr. Hawthorne, or Mr. Locgfello-w 
does, than to adopt the style Emeisouian — in which tlioughts may be buried so deep that 
common seekers shall be unable to find them." — London Alhensemn. 

THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL. 
The mountain and the squirrel 
Had a quarrel, 
And the former called the latter " Little Frig." 
^ Bun replied — 

"You are doubtless A'ery big; 
But all sorts of wind and weather 
Must be taken in together, 
To make up a year. 
And a sphere ; 
And I think it no disgrace 
To occupy my place. 
If I 'm not so large as yon. 
You are not so small as I, 
And not half so spry. 

I'll not deny you make 
A very pretty sq\iirrel-track. 
Talents differ: all is well and wisely put: 
If I cannot carry forests on my back. 
Neither can you crack a nut."" 

THE SPHINX. 

The Sphinx is drowsy. 

Her wings are furled. 
Her eye is heavy. 

She broods on the worldL 
"Who'll tell me my secret 

The ages have kept? 
I awaited the seer 

WhUe they slumber'd and slep^ 

"The fate of the man-child, — 

The meaning of man, — 
KnowTi fruit of the unknown, 

Daedalian plan. 
Out of sleeping a waking. 

Out of waking a sleep. 
Life death overtaking, 

Deep underneath deep. 

"Erect as a sunbeam 

Upspringeth the palm; 
The elephant browses 

Undaunted and calm; 
In beautiful motion 

The thnish plies his win-gs^ 
Kind leaves of his covert! 

Your silence he sings. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 225 



"The waves unashamed 

lu difference sweet, 
Play glad with the breezes, 

Old playfellows meet. 
The journeying atoms, 

Primordial wholes, 
Firmly draw, firmly drive, 

By their animate poles. 

"Sea, earth, air, sound, silence. 

Plant, quadruped, bird, 
By one music enchanted. 

One deity stirred. 
Each the other adorning, 

Accompany still. 
Night veileth the morning, 

The vapor the hill. 

"The babe, by its mother 

Lies bathed in joy. 
Glide its hours uncounted, 

The sun is its toy; 
Shines the peace of all being 

Without cloud in its eyes, 
And the sum of the world 

In soft miniature lies. 

"But man crouches and blushes, 

Absconds and conceals; 
He creepeth and peepetb, 

He palters and steals ; 
Infirm, melancholy. 

Jealous glancing around, 
An oaf, au accomplice, 

lie poisons the ground." 

Outspoke the great mother, 

Beholding his fear; — 
At the sound of her accents 

Cold shuddered the sphere; — 
"Who has drugg'd my boy's cup, 

Who has mixed my boy's bread? 
Who, with sadness and madness. 

Has turned the man-child's head?' 

Uprose the merry Sphinx, 

And crouched no more in storm : 
She hopped into the baby's eyes. 

She hopped into the morn, 
She spired into a yellow flame. 

She flowered in blossoms red, 
She flowed into a foaming wave. 

She stood Monadnoc's head. 
P 



226 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Thorough a thousand voices 

Spoke the universal dame, 
" Who telleth one of my meanings, 

Is master of all I am." 

GREAT WORKS A GROWTH. 

It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius, in the world, was no man's 
work, but came by wide social labor, when a thousand wrought like one, sharing the same 
' impulse. Our English Bible is a wonderful specimen of the strength and music of the Eng- 
lish language. But it was not made by one man, or at one time ; but centuries and churches 
brought it to perfection. There never was a time when there was not some translation ex- 
isting. The Liturgy, admired for its energy and pathos, is an antlaology of the piety of ages 
and nations, a translation of the prayers and forms of the Catholic Church, — these, collected, 
too, in long periods, from the prayers and meditations of every saint and sacred writer, all 

over the world The nervous language of the Common Law, the impressive forms of 

our courts, and the precision and substantial truth of the legal distinctions are the contri- 
bution of all the sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where 

those laws govern The world takes liberties with world-books. Vedas, JEsop's 

Fables, Pilpay, Arabian Nights, Cid, Iliad, Robin Hood, Scottish Minstrelsy, are not the 
work of single men. In the composition of such works, the time thinks, the market thinks, 
the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, all think for us. Every book 
supplies its time with one good word ; every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the 
^ day ; and the generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his originality to 
the originality of all, stands with the next age as the recorder and embodiment of his own. 

SHAKESPEARE BIOGRAPHY. 

Can any biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer Night's Dream 
admits me ? Did Shakespeare confide to any notary or parish recorder, sacristan, or surro- 
gate, in Stratford, the genesis of that delicate creation? The forest of Arden, the nimble 
air of Scone Castle, the moonlight of Portia's villa, "the antres vast and deserts idle," of 
Othello's captivity, — where is the third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of ac- 
counts, or private letters, that has kept one word of those transcendent secrets ? In fine, in 
this drama, as in all great works of art, — in the Cyclopasan architecture of Egypt and In- 
dia; in the Phidian sculpture; the Gothic minsters; the Italian paintings ; the Ballads of 
Spain and Scotland, — the Genius draws up the ladder after him, when the creative age goes 
up to heaven, and gives way to a new, who see the works, and ask in vain fur a history. 

Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakes])eare ; and even he can tell nothing, except 
to the Shakespeare in us ; that is, to our most apprehensive and symjiathetic hour. lie can- 
not step from off his tripod, and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the auti(iuo 
documents extricated, analyzed, and compared, by the assiduous Dyce and Collior; and 
now read one of those skiey sentences — aerolites — which seem to have fallen out of heaven, 
and which, not your experience, but the man within the breast, has accepted as words of 
fate; and tell me if they match; if the former account in any manner for the latter; or, 
which gives the most historical insight into the man. 

Hence, though our external history is so meagre, yet, with Shakespeare for biographer, 
instead of Aubrey and Rowe, we have really the infqrmati(m which is material, that which 
describes character and fortune, that which, if we were about to meet the man and deal 
with him, would most import us to know. We have his recorded C(mvicti(ms on those 
questions which knock for answer at every heart, — on life and death, on love, on wealth 
and poverty, on the prizes of life, and the ways wliereby we come at them ; on the charac- 
ters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which alfect their fortunes ; and on those 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 227 

mysterious and demoniacal powers which defy our science, and which yet interweave their 
malice and their gift in our brightest hours. Whoever read the volume of the Sonnets, 
without fimling that the poet had there revealed, under masks that arc no masks to thi; in- 
telligent, tlie love of friendship and of love; the confusion of sentiment in tlxe most sus- 
ceptible, and at the same time, the most intellectual of men? What trait of his private 
mind has he hidden in his dramas? One can discern, in liis ample pictures of tlie gentle- 
man and the king, what forms and humanities pleased him ; his delight in troops of friends, 
in large hospitality, in cheerful giving. Lot Timon, let Warwick, let Antonio the merchant, 
answer for his great heart. So far from Shakespeare being the least known, he is the one 
person, in all modern history, knoM-n to us. What point of morals, of manners, of economj-, 
of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What mys- 
tery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or fimction, or district of man's 
work has he not remembered? What king has he not taught state, as Talina taught Napo- 
leon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not 
outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the 
rudeness of hia behavior ? 



Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli. 

Sajrah Margaret Fuller, Marchioness D'Ossoli, 1810-1850, is asso- 
ciated, in history and in her modes of thinking and writing, with her friend 
and biographer, Ealph Waldo Emerson. Her writings were chiefly criti- 
cal, her Papers on Literature and Art being her best volume. She was while 
living noted also for her conversational power, in which particular she is 
thought to have been fully equal to the celebrated Madame de Stael. 

Margaret Fuller was born in Cambridge, Mass. She was the daughter of the Hon. Timothy 
Fuller, a lawj^er of Boston, but nearly all his life a resident of Cambridge, and a Represen- 
tative of the Middlesex District in Congress from 1817 to 1825. Mr. Fuller, upon his retire- 
ment from Congress, purchased a farm at some distance from Boston, and abandoned law 
for agriculture, soon after which he died. 

Margaret from a very early age evinced the possession of remarkable intellectual powers. 
Her father regarded her with a proud admiration, and was from childhood her chief in- 
structor, guide, companion, and friend. Ho was accustomed to require of her, at eight 
years of age, the composition of a number of Latin verses every day. Iler studies in phi- 
losophy, history, general science, and current literature were in after years extensive and 
profound. 

After her father's death, she applied herself to teaching as a vocation, first in Boston, 
then in Providence, and afterwards in Boston again, where her "Conversations" were for 
several seasons attended by classes of women, some of them married, and including many 
from the best families of that city. 

In the autumn of 184:4, she accepted an invitation to write for the New York Tribune, in 
the department of llevievs and Criticisms on current Literature and Art, a position which 
she filled with eminent ability for nearly two years. She had previously found " fit audience 
though few," for a series of remarkable papers in The Dial, of which she wius at first 
co-editor with Emersim, but which Wiis afterwards edited by him only, though she contiu- 
ued a contributor to its pages. The subjects discussed in these papers wore the following: 
Lord Herbert of Cherbury ; Woman ; The Great Musicians, etc. 

In 1843, Miss Fuller accompanied some friends on a tour by Niaga^^ Detroit, and Mack- 
inac to Chicago, and across the prairies of Illinois. The resulting volume, entitled »Sum- 
mer on the Lakes, is considered one of her besi works in this department. Her Womou 



228 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

in the Nineteenth Century — an extension of her essay in The Dial, was published early 
in 1315, and a moderate edition sold. The next year a selection from her Papers on Litera- 
ture and Art was issued by Wiley and Putnam, in two volumes of their Library of American 
Books. These Papers embody some of her best contributions to The Dial, The Tribune, and 
perhaps one or two which had not appeared in either. 

In the summer of 1845, Miss Fuller accompanied the family of a friend to Europe, 
visiting England, Scotland, France, and passing through Italy to Rome, where they spent 
the ensuing winter. She accompanied her friends next spring to the north of Italy, and 
there stopped, spending most of the next summer at Florence, and returning at the approach 
of winter to Rome, where she was soon after married to Giovanni, Marquis d'Ossoli, who 
had made her acquaintance during her first winter in the Eternal City. 

They afterwards resided in the Roman States until the summer of 1850, when they, deemed 
it expedient to migrate to Florence, both having taken an active part in the Republican 
movement. In June they set sail at Leghorn for New York, in the Philadelphia brig 
Elizabeth, which was doomed to encounter a succession of disasters. They had not been 
many days at sea when the captain was prostrated by a disease which ultimately exhibited 
itself as confluent small-pox of the most malignant type, and terminated his life soon after 
they touched at Gibraltar, after a sickness of intense agony and loathsome horror. 

The vessel was detained some days in quarantine by reason of this affliction, but finally set 
sail again just in season to bring her on our coast on the fearful night between the 18th and 
19th of July, 1850, when darkness, rain, and a terrible gale from the south-west conspired 
to hurl her into the very jaws of destruction. She struck during the night, and before the 
next evening was a mass of drifting sticks and planks, while the passengers and part of the 
crew were buried in the boiling surges. Among those drowned in this fearful wreck were 
the Marquis and Marchioness d'Ossoli, and their only child. 

Horace Binney Wallace. 

Horace Binney Wallace, 1817-1852, was a man of remarkable abili- 
ties and character. His posthumous volumes on Art and Scenery in 
Europe, and Literary Criticisms and Other Papers, though fragmentary 
and incomplete, give on every page evidence of the very highest abilities 
as a literary and art critic. His early death occasioned profound regret. 

Mr. Wallace was a native and resident of Philadelphia, and a nephew of the distinguished 
jurist, Horace Binney. After studying for two years in the University of Pennsylvania, he 
entered Princeton, graduating in the class of 1835. He studied both medicine and law, but 
practised neither. He travelled in Europe in 184:9 and '50, and again in 18.52, dying in the 
year last named, at Paris. After his death were published : Art and Scenery in Europe ; 
Literary Criticism and Other Papers. He had been engaged, with Mr. J. I. Clarke Hare, in 
the preparation of a series of volumes on Civil and Canonical Law, which received the high- 
est commendations of the profession. Mr. "Wallace's first publication was a novel, Stanley, 
or The Recollections of a Man of the World, written at the age of twenty. " I doubt whether 
history displays, at thirty years of age, a loftier nature, or one more usefully or profoundly 
cultivated." — Daniel Webster. 

Henry Reed. 

Henry Eeed, LL. D., 1808-1854, grandson of General Joseph Keed of 
Revolutionary memory, and Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature 
in the University of Pennsylvania, is widely and most favorably known by 
his Lectures on English Literature and other works of a like character. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 229 

Prof. Reed was born in Pliiladelphia, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, in 
the class of 1825. He studied law and was admitted to tlie bar, but afterwards devoted him- 
self to the more congenial pursuits of literature. He was lost on the steamer Arctic, Sept. 
27, 1854. 

Prof. Reed was a man of fine literary culture, an accomplished writer, lecturer, and 
critic; and his sudden death iu the midst of his ye<irs and his usefulness Avas justly regarded 
as a great public loss. Besides important services in editing the Poems of Wordsworth 
Reid's English Dictionary, Graham's English Synonymes, and other scholarly work, he left 
in manuscript several Courses of Lectures, which were edited by his brother William B. 
Reed, and which have been received with great favor. There were Lectures on English 
Literature, alreadynientioued; Lectures on English History as illustrated by Shakespeare's 
Plays; Lectures on the British Poets ; Two Lectures on the History of the American Union. 

William B. Reed, LL. D., 1806 , a brother of the preceding, was likewise bom in Phila- 
delphia, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, iu the class of 1822. Mr. Reed is 
by profession a lawyer. He was Attorney-General of Pennsylvania in 1838, and United States 
Minister to China in 1857 and '58. He negotiated the Treaty with China. Mr. Reed is a 
vigorous writer, and his pen has seldom been idle. Besides numerous Addresses before liter- 
ary and historical societies, he has published The Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed 
(his grandfather), 2 vols., Svo ; and A Memoir of' Prof. Henry Reed (his brother) with an 
edition of Prof. Reed's Lectures. Mr. Reed had also an active pamphlet warfare with Ban- 
croft and others, in regard to certain points in the history of Gen. Joseph Reed. 

Verplanek. 

GuLiAN Crommelin Verplanck, LL.D., 1787-1870, was the first 
American who distinguished himself in the difficult walk of Shakespearian 
criticism. His edition of Shakespeare's Plays, with a Life and Critical 
Notes, was an honor to American scholarship, and was the best American 
edition of Shakespeare prior to that of Richard Grant White. 

Mr. Yerplanck was born in the city of New York, and graduated at Columbia College at 
the early age of fifteen. He studied for the bar, was admitted, and then spent several years 
in European travel. On his return he took an active part in State politics — which did not 
prevent him, however, from discharging the duties of Professor of the Evidences of Christi- 
anity in the Protestant Episcopal Seminary of New York, — was member of Congress from 
the city for eight years, and for a long while afterwards was State Senator. The New York 
Senate at that time — like the House of Lords — constituted, in conjunction with the judges 
of the higher courts, a court of appeals from the Supreme Court and the Chancery. Ver- 
planek took great interest in these judicial proceedings, and many of his decisions are con- 
tained in Wendell's Reports. 

As a federal representative, Mr. Verplanek is entitled to the grateful regard of every 
American author for his successful efforts in securing the extension of time of copyrights. 

For the forty years preceding his death he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of New 
York. 

Mr. Verplanck's works, the most influential, at least, are mainly speeches delivered on 
public occasions. The earliest wsis the annivereary discourse before the New York Histori- 
cal Society, delivered in 1818. This is generally known under its distinctive title: The 
Early European Friends of America. Among his other discourses are those on The Right 
Moral Influence of Liberal Studies, delivered at Ilobart College ; on The Influence of Moral 
Causes upon Opinions, Science, and Literature, delivered at Amherst CuUego ; and on The 
Advantages and Daiigors of the American Scholar. 

20 



230 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In early life Mr. Verplanck published anonymously The Bucktail Bards, a collection of 
poems satirizing the literary pretensions of De Witt Clinton. 

His Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts, called forth by the celebrated case of Ludlow vs. 
Organ, is a searching inquiry into the bearings of ignorance, error, and concealment on the 
part of contracting parties upon the validity of contracts. 

In 1844 appeared his well-known edition of Shakespeare, prefaced by a Life of the draaiar 
tist, and illustrated with wood-cuts and critical notes. 

Besides his labors already mentioned, Verplanck was a constant contributor to The Talis- 
man, the Analectic Magazine, the North American Review, etc. In short, his protracted 
life was industriously spent in furthering in every way the cause of American literature 
and American progress. 

William Alfred Jones, 1817 , a native of New York and a graduate of Columbia 

College, is a writer of note, the author of several volumes of literary criticism, which have 
been favorablj' received by Washington Irving, Poe, Whipple, and others. His principal 
works are : The Analyst ; Essays upon Authors and Books ; and Characters and Criticisms, 

Rufus W. Gris^^rold. 

EuFUS Wllmot Griswold, D.D., 1815-1857, without having much native 
talent, with little scholarship, and with less either of taste or judgment in 
literary matters, yet by persevering industry and by skill in availing him- 
self of the help of others, not only gained distinction for himself, but did 
important service in the cause of American letters. His chief works, The 
Female Poets of America, The Prose Writers of America, and The Poets 
and Poetry of America, are valuable and permanent contributions to our 
literature. 

Mr. Griswold was a native of Benson, Rutland County, Vt. He began life as a Baptist 
preacher, but gradually discontinued his clerical functions, and gave himself up to literary 
life. He was editor successively of several periodicals — The New Yorker, The Brother Jona- 
than, The New World, Graham's Magazine, and The International Magazine. He pub- 
lished a volume of Poems, a volume of Sermons, The Biographical Annual for 1842, and 
Curiosities of American Literature, the last being intended as an appendix to Disraeli's Cu- 
riosities of Literature. He also edited the works of Poe, with a memoir. One of his more 
elaborate performances was a sumptuous volume, called The Republican Court, giving a 
description of American society in the days of Washington, with twenty-one portraits of the 
distinguished women of that time. 

Mr. Griswold's chief literary service, however, was the compilation of the three large 
octavos, already mentioned, filling 1500 double-column pages, and entitled severally. The 
Female Poets of America, The Prose Writers of America, and The Poets and Poetry of 
America. They contain biographical and critical notices, copious extracts, and a few well 
engraved portraits, and form a most valuable contribution to the history of American litera- 
ture. Most of the biographical information contained in these volumes was obtained from 
original sources, tlic selections are made with taste .and judgment, and the works as a whole 
do credit to the intlustry, and in some respects to the literary skill of the author. " He was 
a plodding, industrious, and careful writer, extremely well informed on American literature, 
but by no means an elegant, or even a correct, though a very ambitious writer. He was 
inclined to be metaphysical and transcendental, but would get out of his depth and become 
unintelligible. Though he had no genius whatever, he has done some service in literature. 
He will be remembered by his compilations," — R. Shelton Mctjckemsie. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 231 

Park Benjashn, 1809-1864, a poet and journalist, was born at Demarara, British Gaiana, 
where his father, a New York merchant, was residing at the time. Mr. Benjjunin wrote 
numerous short lyrics, his longest poem being one called The Meditation of Nature. He 
edited the American Monthly Magazine in New York for ten years, and was associated with 
Bufus W. Griswold in some of the literary enterprises of the latter. Many of Mr. Benja- 
min's pieces show capabilities for something higher than anything he ever achieved. 

Charles Dexter Clevelant), LL. D., 1802-1869, was a native of Salem, Mass., and a gradu- 
ate of Dartmouth. He became a Professor in Dickinson College in 1830, and in the New 
York University in 1832. In 1834 he established a school for young ladies in Philadelphia, 
and in that position achieved his principal success. He was the author of several valuable 
school-books for teaching Latin and Greek, but was chiefly known in letters by the following 
works: A Compendium of English Literature; English Literature of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury ; A Compendium of American Literature; A Compendium of Classical Literature. He 
also issued the Lyra Sacra Americana, and a critical edition of Milton's Poetical Works, with 
Notes, a Life of the Author, and a complete Verbal Index. 

Professor Cleveland, in 1861, was appointed United States Consul at Cardiff, Wales, which 
oflBce he held until 1864, when he returned to America. In 1866, he went to Europe and 
spent three years abroad, mostly on the Continent. 

V. POLITICAL WRITERS. 

Alexander H. Everett. 

Alexander Hill Everett, 1790-1847, was a man of letters as well as 
a statesman, and did much by his writings to give shape to the national 
policy. His writings did much also towards vindicating American states- 
manship before the bar of European opinion. His two largest works, one 
on the State of Europe, and one on the State of America, challenged and 
gained general and respectful attention. His numerous contributions to 
the North American Keview also formed a valuable body of political criti- 
cism and debate. 

Mr. Everett was a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard. He entered college at the 
age of twelve and graduated with the highest honors at the age of sixteen. lie studied law 
with John Quincy Adams, and accompanied Mr. Adams on his mission to Russia, in 1S09, 
being then nineteen years old. From that time until 1829, with brief intervals, he was 
engaged in the foreign diplomatic service of the United States, at St. Petersburg until 1812, 
in the Netherlands until 1824, and in Spain until 1829. 

On returning from Spain he became editor and proprietor of the North American Review, 
to which he had already, during his foreign residence, been a frequent contributor. He w.is 
confidential agent of the United States in Cuba in 1840, and President of JeiTerson College, 
Louisiana, in 18 H. The latter appointment he soon relinquished on account of declining 
health. In 1846, he went to Canton as United States Minister to the Chinese Empire, and 
died there in 1847, at tbe age of fifty-seven. 

Mr. Everett's first publications were articles in the Monthly Anthology, a Boston maga- 
zire, issued from 18o3 to ISll. His contributions to the North American Review number 
forty-four; those to the Boston Quarterly, eleven ; those to the Democratic Review, seven- 
teen; in all, seventy-two articles, on subjects of the most diverse character, and displaying 
abilities of the highest order. Besides these contributions to periodical literature, Mr. 
Everett published a volume of Poems; and two volumes of Critical and Miscellaneous 
Essays ; and wrote the Lives of Warren and Patrick Henry, for Sparks's American Biography. 



232 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mr. Everett's largest separate publications were those already quoted, namely : Europe, 
or a General Survey of the Political Situation of the Principal Powers, with conjectures on 
their future Prospects ; America, or a General Survey of the Political Situation of the Several 
Powers of the Western Continent, with Conjectures on their Future Prospects; and New 
Ideas on Population, &c., being a sequel to the discussion occasioned by his work on Europe. 
In these important works, Mr. Everett boldly and intelligently examined the two leading 
theories of political economy then dominating European thoughts, those of Godwin and 
Malthus, and gave a solution to the vexed question of population, which, if it did not escape 
criticism, gained universal attention. The w^ork on Europe was translated into French, 
Spanish, and German, the German edition being under the editorial supervision of Professor 
Jacobi, of the University of Halle. The work on America likewise gained ample considera- 
tion : 

" This essay, however objectionable it may be to an Englishman in several respects, is 
marked by ability of the very first order. Since the publication of those admirable disserta- 
tions which were collected in The Federalist, we have not seen any political composition 
from the pen of an American that can at all be compared with this. The style is idiomatic 
and thoroughly English, found in our best school. We are often compelled to admire the 
beauty of the periods when we are most disposed to differ from the sentiments which they 
convey." — London Monthly Review. 



Edward Everett. 

Edwaed Evebett, D.C.L., 1794-1865, in addition to the many and 
varied gifts of his brother Alexander, as a writer and a negotiator of affairs 
of state, had the rare qualities of a consummate orator. He had from boy- 
hood a natural gift for eloquence, and he cultivated the art to the highest 
point that the most assiduous study and practice could enable him to reach. 
His writings are numerous and varied, but his fame rests chiefly on his 
Orations. These have been published in four large volumes, and are an 
enduring monument of his genius. 

Edward Everett was bom at Dorchester, near Boston, and educated at Cambridge. He 
entered college at thirteen, and was graduated with high honors at seventeen. After study- 
ing divinity for two years, he was ordained as a Unitarian minister, and began preaching to 
the Brattle Street church, in Boston, left vacant by the death of Buckminster. 

As a pulpit orator, Mr. Everett's success was immediate and brilliant. The following testi- 
mony to his abilities in this line is from the pen of Chief-Justice Story. It was on the 
occasion of a sermon preached in the Capitol, at Washington, in 1820. " The sermon truly 
was splendid, and was heard with a breathless silence. The audience was very large ; and 
being in that magnificent apartment of the House of Representatives, it had vast effect. 
I saw Mr. King, of New York, and Mr. Otis, of Massachusetts, there. They were both very 
much affected with Mr. Everett's sermon ; and Mr. Otis, in particular, wept bitterly. There 
was some very touching appeals to our most delicate feelings, as the love of our friends. 
Indeed, Mr. Everett was almost universally admired, as the most eloquent of preachers. 
Mr. King told me he never heard a discourse so full of unction, eloquence, and good taste." 

In 1815, at the early age of twenty-one, Mr. Everett was appointed to the chair of Greek 
in the University at Cambridge, but before entering on the duties of his professorship, and 
as preparatory to it, he spent four years in European study, chiefly in the University of 
Gcittingen. He also made the acquaintance of Scott, Byron, Jeffrey, Mackintosh, Campbell, 
Romilly, Davy, and others. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 233 

In 1825 he entered actively upon political life, being elected to the House of Representa- 
tives, at Washington, and continuing in Congress for the next ten years. In 1835 he be- 
came Governor of Massachusetts, and continued in office four years. On the election of 
Harrison to the Presidency, Mr. Everett was appointed, 1841, United States Minister to Eng- 
land. On returning from that mission, in 1845, he was elected President of Harvard Univer- 
sity, which post he held about five years. 

In 185J, he was appointed Secretary of State by President Fillmore, and continued in 
that oflBce until the accession of President Pierce, in 1853. Being then elected a United 
States Senator from Massachusetts, he entered actively upon the duties of the ofiBce, but in 
1854, on account of declining health, resigned the position with the intention of retiring 
entirely from public life. 

Eecovering to some extent his health, and being earnestly drawn towards measures of 
conciliation in the impending crisis of public affairs, Mr. Everett conceived, among other 
things, the patriotic project of purchasing Mt. Ternon, the residence and burial-place of 
Washington, and consecrating it as a public shrine for Americans in all future ages. As a means 
of raising the money needed for the project, and at the same time of diffusing patriotic sen- 
timents, he prepared an Oration on Washington, which he delivered to public audiences in 
almost every part of the United States, and raised by these means nearly one hundred thou- 
sand dollars for his object. He also wrote, for the promotion of the same object, a series of 
articles for the New York Ledger, for which Mr. Bonner, the liberal-minded publisher of 
that paper, paid the handsome sum of ten thousand dollars. 

When the issue finally came between the North and the South, at the Presidential election 
in 1860, Mr. Everett was a candidate for the Yice-Presidency on the ticket which proposed 
constitutional compromise. Being defeated, and the war coming on, he gave his cohesion 
to the party of his Northern brethren and the support of the national government. 

Mr. Everett was by nature an orator and rhetorician, in the highest and best sense of those 
words; and both as a speaker and a writer, he will compare favorably with some of the 
great orators of antiquity. His orations are prepared with the most elaborate care, and in 
the delivery there was nothing in manner, person, dress, gesture, tone, accent, or emphasis 
too minute for his attention. 

He began authorship at an early age, his first work, published when he was only twenty, 
being a volume of nearly 500 pages, entitled A Defence of Christianity, written in reply to the 
work, Christianity Examined, by the infidel writer, George R. English. He edited the North 
American Review from 1820 to 1821, and continued to contribute to it afterwards under the 
editorship of his brother and others. His contributions to this review number over one 
hundred, the articles, like those of Alexander Everett's, being exceedingly varied in their 
subjects, but marked with ability and scholarship, as was everything that came from his pen. 

His Orations and Speeches have been published, 4 vols., 8vo. He prepared, also, a volume 
for the Massachusetts District School Librarj-, Importance of Practical Education and Use- 
ful Knowledge. The articles written for the New York Ledger were Lkewise printed in a 
separate volume, called The Mount Yernon Papers. 

Mr. Everett's fame as a writer rests mainly upon his Orations. 

" The great charm of Mr. Everett's Orations consists, not so much in any single and 
strongly developed intellectual trait, as in that symmetry and finish which, on every page, 
gives token of the richly-endowed and thorough scholar. The natural movements of his 
mind are full of grace ; and the most indifferent sentences which fall from his ppn have that 
simple elegance which it is as diflBcult to define as it is easy to perceive." — E. G. Hillard. 

"If Webster is the Michael Angelo of American oratory, Everett is the Raphael. In the 
former's definition of eloquence, he recognizes its latent existence in the occasion, as well as 
in the man and the subject. His own oratory is remarkable for grasping the bold and essen- 
tial ; for developing, as its own, the anatomical basis — the very essence and nerves of his 
subject — while Everett instinctively catches and unfolds the grace of occasion, whatever 
20* 



234 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

it be ; in his mind the sense of beauty is Tivid, and nothing is more surprising in his oratory 
than the ease and facility with which he seizes upon the enduring amenities of every topic, 
however far removed it,may be from the legitimate domain of tact or scholarship," — Whipple. 



Daniel Webster. 

Daniei. Webster, 1782-1852, was not merely a great lawyer and a 
great statesman ; he was also a great master of sound English, and as such 
is entitled to a conspicuous position in the literary records of his country. 

His works have been published in 6 vols., Svo, consisting of Speeches, 
Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers. 

The leading incidents of Mr. Webster's life are too well known to call for more than a 
brief summary in this place. Born of humble but sturdy parents, on the very outskirt of 
civilization in New Hampshire, he enjoyed only meagre opportunities of education. By 
dint of strenuous exertions on his own part, aided by the warm self-sacrifice of his father, 
he was enabled to study for a while at Exeter Academy and at Dartmouth College, where 
he graduated in 1801. 

Mr. Webster studied law, first in his native place, Salisbury, and afterguards with Chris- 
topher Gore of Boston. He was admitted to the Suffolk Bar, and afterwards to practice in 
the Superior Court of New Hampshire. He practised for a number of years in Portsmouth, 
then the capital of the State, but removed to Boston again in 1816; from this time, Boston 
and Marshfield were his home, if not always his place of residence. 

Mr. Webster was United States Representative nine years in all, and United States Senator 
eighteen years, and was three times Secretary of State, namely, under Harrison, Tj^ler, and 
Fillmore. That he was not elected to the highest office in the gift of his country, was due 
rather to peculiar conjunctions of public affairs than to any want of appreciation of his ser- 
vices in the hearts of his countrymen generally. 

Webster has not shaped the political destinies of his country as directly or as permanently, 
perhaps, as Jefferson and Hamilton have done. But he had a wider range of intellect and 
culture than either, and he is on the whole the most atti-active figure in the American 
political arena next to Washington. With all his mistakes and shortcomings, he was a 
man to be loved and respected. The nick-name of " Black Dan " only indicates the familiar 
affection with wliich he was regarded bj' his followers. He stood alone in his generation — 
a tall, commanding figure, with swarthy complexion, sonorous voice, deep-seated, lustrous 
eye, overhanging brows, and a grand, majestic head whose size has become proverbial. 

In private life Mr. Webster was genial and entertaining, and he lived and died an enthu- 
siastic sportsman and disciple of Izaak Walton. Amid all his greatness he was never so 
happy as when rambling, gun in hand, over the shooting-grounds at Marshfield or patting 
the necks of his favorite cattle. To Webster's memory may be applied most fittingly those 
words of Hamlet : 

He was a man, take him for all in all. 
We shall not look upon his like again. 

Regarded from the literary point of view, Webster's productions may be grouped into 
three classes: his legal arguments, his Congressional speeches, and his set orations. 

Prominent, almost alone, in the first class, stands his celebrated argument in the Dart- 
mouth College case. The Legislature of New ILunpshire had, without the consent of the 
Trustees, entirely reorganized the College. The Trustees brought suit to recover possession 
of the seal, records, and other i)roperty. This suit had been rejected in the State courts, and 
was brought up to the United States Supreme Court on appeal. Webster, who was only 
junior counsel, opened the case — regarded then as hopeless — with tho most profound and 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 235 

skilful argument that had ever been made before that tribunal, and really exhausted the 
subject. His main stress was laid upon that clause of the National C!onstitution which pro- 
hibits the States from interfering with the inviolability of contracts. Ue held that the act 
of incorporation was itself a contract with the incorporated body which the Legislature 
could not, by any subsequent act, annul or weaken. The Court, with but one dissenting 
vote, accepted his views, and from that day the Dartmouth College case has been regarded 
as settling forever tlie position of corporate bodies throughout the United States. Of equal 
power and of almost equal importance were Webster's arguments in the leading cases of 
Gibbons and Ogden (on steamboat monopolies), the Charles River Bridge, the Rhode Island 
Charter, the Alabama Bank, and the Girard Will. 

In criminal law, also, Webster's speech in the trial of Knapp at Salem is a wonderful 
display of forensic eloquence. Nor are his state papers inferior in merit. They are all con- 
ceived and expressed with wonderful vigor and elegance. Nothing in the English language 
is better written than, for instance, Webster's letter to Lord Ashburton on the impressment 
of seamen. 

The second class of Webster's productions — his Congressional speeches — are so familiar 
to every American school-boy as to call for scarcely any notice. The very first of them, 
delivered in 1813, on the subject of the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees, established 
his reputation forever. Then came the speeches on the United States Bank, the Tariff 
Question, the Greek Revolution (where Webster denounced in unsparing terms the Holy 
Alliance), and on the Panama Congress. 

In 1830 Webster made what the popular heart, if not the orator's own mind, has always 
considered his greatest effort — the reply to Hayne. Its delivery was a memorable scene in 
the annals of Congress. The old Senate Chamber was crowded to overflowing with notables 
of every grade, party, and nationality, kept spellbound for hours by the speaker's eloquence. 
This speech was regarded, at the time, as settling forever, as a matter of argument, the nul- 
lification doctrine. Bitter subsequent experience has shown that both the doctrine of seces- 
sion and the love for the Union, were too deeply rooted for mere forensic argument. 

Brilliant, however, as Webster's Congressional speeches are, they do not fully equal his 
set orations. Three of these — the Plymouth Rock discourse, the Bunker Hill Monument 
discourse, and the Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson — are among the very choicest master- 
pieces of all ages and all tongues. Nothing in the palmy days of Greece or Rome or Eng- 
land or France has ever surpassed these orations in unity and harmony of structure, or in 
simple but majestic diction. The genius of Webster here reveals itself, unfettered bj' the 
needs of party and untainted by the heat of debate, in all its depth, its sweetness, and its 
originality. We cannot analyze these orations. Each seems to pour itself forth as the 
single, spontaneous utterance of a great creative mind. It is the voice of a man who has 
something grand to say to his fellow-men. To the student, these orations, and indeed all 
Webster's speeches, may be recommended as models of style to be carefully considered. 

It is especially true of Webster that the style is the man. His style is the plain, straight- 
forward expression of a clear and earnest mind. The sentences are singularly free from the 
tricks of rhetoric in which most orators delight to deal, and the words are the living em- 
bodiment of the ideas which they are intended to convey, while back of all we seem to see 
the tall, gravely impassioned form of the orator himself, arousing us, convincing us, sway- 
ing us at his will. 

Webster's Private Correspondence wm published in 1856, in part, but his Life long re- 
mained unwritten in a manner adequate to the importance of the subject. In 1869 and '70, 
however, appeared Mr. George Ticknor Curtis's excellent biography of Webster. This work 
fully supplies the need so long felt by the public. It is based upon the richest biographical 
material, collected by Webster and by his literary executors, of whom Mr. Curtis himself is 
one. The biographer is also in full sympathy with his subject, an<l prepared, by his own 
culture and position, to do it justice. He has given us a full and thoughtful portraiture of 
Web-ster, not merely in his legal and political activity, but in the eade and charming famil- 
iarity of domestic and friendly intercourse. 



236 AMERICAK LITEEATURE. 

John Quiney Adams. 

John Quincy Adams, 1767-1848, son of John Adams, and sixth Presi- 
dent of the United States, was a man of varied learning, and his writings, 
both literary and political, are numerous. 

Mr. Adams published during his life several volumes, among which may 
be named Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory ; The Bible and its Teachings, 
a series of letters to his son ; Poems of Eeligion and Society ; and Letters 
on Freemasonry. A collective edition of his works, by his son Charles 
Francis Adams, has been promised. 

Mr. Adams's life was spent almost entirely in public, and forms a part of the national his- 
tory. He was born at Braintree, Mass., and graduated at Harvard. His boyhood and youth 
from seven to eighteen were spent in Europe with his father and others, then in the foreign 
service of the United States ; and thus he was at an early age initiated in the arts and forms 
of diplomacy. He returned home in 1785, and after graduating at Harvard, studied law with 
Theophilus Parsons. 

Mr. Adams's first publication, of any note, was a series of letters, under the signature of 
Publicola, in 1791, advocating neutrality with France. From that time to the time of his 
death, his tongue and his pen were busy, though mostly in the form of legislative and 
forensic speeches, or of political discussion through the columns of the newspapers. 

From 1806 to 1S09 he was Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard University, and his two volumes 
of Lectures on that subject were one of the fruits of his labors there. 

Mr. Adams maintained his intellectual activity to the very close of life, and almost literally 
died in the harness. After retiring from the Presidency, he entered the House of Kepresent- 
atives, and continued to the last to engage in the arena of political debate, never hesitating 
to break a lance with the youngest and the doughtiest of those opposed to him. Some of 
his boldest and most vigorous efforts were put forth when he was over fourscore, and gained 
for him by common consent the familiar title of " the old man eloquent." 

In the heat and bitterness of partisan life at Washington, Mr. Adams never lost his love 
for the more genial atmosphere of letters, in which his young manhood had been spent, and 
he often gave tokens of this more genial aspect of his many-sided character. On one occasion, 
when appealed to by a number of young ladies for his autograph, he composed the follow- 
ing characteristic poem, writing, for convenience of distribution, each stanza on a separate 
sheet of note paper. A few stanzas are quoted : 

THE WANTS OF MAN. 

♦'Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long."— Goldsmith. 

"Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long." 
'Tis not with me exactly so, 

But 'tis so in the song. 
My wants are many, and if told 

Would muster many a score ; 
And were each wish a mint of gold, 

I still should long for more. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 237 

What first I want is daily bread, 

And canvas-backs and wine; 
And all the realms of nature spread 

Before me when I dine. 
Four courses scarcely can provide 

My appetite to quell, 
"With four choice cooks from France, beside, 

To dress my dinner well. 

These are the wants of mortal man; 

I cannot want them long. 
For life itself is but a span, 

And earthly bliss a song. 
My last great want, absorbing all, 

Is, when beneath the sod. 
And summoned to my final call, 

The mercy of my God. 

Benton. 

Thomas Haut Benton, 1782-1858, for thirty years a representative of 
Missouri in the Senate of the United States, was one of the most eminent 
of political writers, as well as one of the most distinguished of American 
statesmen. Besides his Speeches he published two works of great political 
and literary value, namely, his Thirty Years' View, and his Abridgment 
of the Debates of Congress. 

Mr. Benton was born near Hillsborough, N. C, and studied for some time at the Univer- 
sity of that State, at Chapel Hill, but did not remain to graduate. He removed to Tennessee, 
and afterwards, in 1813, to Missouri. In the Senate, he was a strong and persistent advocate 
of a specie currency, acquiring by his efforts the epithet of Old Bullion. Two other measures 
with which he was largely identified were the reduction of the price of the public lands, with 
a view to promote settlement, and the construction of a railroad to the Pacific. 

On retiring from the Senate, he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and prepared for 
publication the important works which have been named. These were Thirty Years' View, 
or a History of the Workings of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 
1850, 2 vols., 8vo; An E.xamination of the Dred Scott Case, 8vo; and An Abridgment of the 
Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1856, 15 vols., 8vo. The first named of these works had a 
very large sale. "The literary execution of this work, the simplicity of its style, and the 
unexceptionable taste which tempers all its author's allusions to his contemporaries, have 
been the subject of universal admiration," — W. C. Bryant. 

Clay. 

Henry Clay, 1777-1852, acquired special distinction as an orator. His 
Speeches have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. Though valuable merely as 
literary cfibrts, they give little idea of his wonderful powers, his eloquence, 
much more than that of his great political compeers, depending upon 
the matchless graces of his delivery. 

" Take him for all in all, we must regard him as the first of American orators ; but posterity 
'Will uot assign him that rank, because posterity will not hear that matchless voice, will nut 



238 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Bee those large features, those striking attitudes, that grand manner, which gave to second- 
rate composition first-rate efi'ect. His Speeclies will long be interesting as the relics of a 
magnificent and dazzling personality, and for the light they cast upon the history of par- 
ties ; but they add scarcely anything to the intellectual property of the nation." — Parton. 

Mr. Clay was a native of Yirginia, but a resident and representative of Kentucky. He 
was in political life for fifty years, and a great part of that time in the city of Washington, 
where he was the associate and peer of Webster, Calhoun, and the other great men of the 
nation of that day. He negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, in 1815, and was for several terms 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. He gained his greatest honors, however, in the 
United States Senate. He was on different occasions a candidate for the Presidency, but 
never on the winning side. 

Calhoun. 

John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782-1850, was one of the most distin- 
guished political writers and thinkers of his generation. However much 
his compeers may have differed from him in views, there was among them 
but one opinion in regard to his transcendent abilities. His "Works, con- 
sisting mainly of speeches, have been published in 6 vols., 8vo, and form 
a compact and coherent system of political opinion. 

Mr. Calhoun was born in the Abbeville District, S. C. He graduated at Yale, in 1804, 
with the first honor. He studied law in Litchfield, Conn., and began practice in his 
native State in 1807. He was in political life from 1808 to the time of his death, 1850, a pe- 
riod of more than forty years, and nearly all that time at Washington. Of all the men 
during that time at the national capital, none exercised so commanding an influence in his 
own section as Mr. Calhoun. 

" The eloqiience of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner in which he exhibited his sentiments in 
public bodies, was part of his intellectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his 
mind. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise , sometimes impassioned, still always 
severe. Rejecting ornament, not seeking far for his illustrations, his power consisted in the 
plainness of his propositions, the clearness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of 
his manner." — Daniel Webster. 

Hugh L. Legare. 

Hugh Swtnton Legare, 1797-1843, was almost equally distinguished 
as a jurist, and as a man of letters, and in both respects he was held in 
great estimation. His works have been published in 2 vols., 8vo. They 
comprise speeches and papers on political, literary, and historical subjects, 
and show him to have been a man of high culture and of a most genial 
temper. 

Mr. Legarfi was a native of South Carolina. He studied at the college in Columbia, and 
afterwards in Paris and Edinburgh. He was Attorney-General of the State, Charge d'Af- 
faires at Brussels, Member of Congress, and. in ISil, Attorney-General of the United States. 

Mr. Legare was one of the most popular and eminent jurists that America has produced, 
and also a man of wide attainments, elegant culture, and genial manners. 

The best known of his essays are: The Constitutional History of Greece; Demosthenes; 
and the Origin, History, and Influence of Roman Legislation. All three appeared in the 



i 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 239 

New York Review. Legar6's chosen object in life was the fusion of the Civil and the Com- 
mon Law. 

"Fifteen years ago (1S28), I knew him as an eminent lawyer. He afterwards went abroad 
in a diplomatic capacity, and at Brussels, where ho resided, devoted himself anew to the 
study of the Civil Law, witli a view to make it subservient to the great object of his life — 
the expansion of theComnion Law and the forcing into it the enlarged and liberal principles 
and just morality of the Roman jurisi)rudencu. This object he seemed about to accomplish; 
for his argrmients before the Supreme Court were crowded with the principles of the Roman 
law wrought into the texture of the Common Law, with great success. . . . His argumenta- 
tion was marked by the closest logic ; at the same time he had a presence in speaking, 
which I have never seen excelled." — Judge Story. 

Rufus Choate. 
Kurus Choate, LL.D., 1799-1859, was a man of commanding abilities 
at the bar and in the Senate, and hardly less distinguished in letters. His 
contributions to literature are not numerous, but they are of a character to 
leave a permanent impress of the man upon his age. They have been pub- 
lished, with a memoir of his life, in 2 vols., 8vo, and consist of Lectures, 
Addresses, and Speeches. Of his great forensic arguments, no adequate 
report remains. 

Mr. Choate was born in Essex, Mass., and educated at Bowdoin. He studied law first at 
Cambridge, and then in the office of William Wirt at Washington. After practising for a 
time at Danvers, he removed to Boston, where he rose to the highest position as an advo- 
cate. He was United States Senator from 1841 to 1845. 

Mrs. Louisa S. McCord, 1810 , is a native of South Carolina, and a daughter of the 

distinguished publicist, Langdon Cheves. She is a woman of high culture, and of superior 
literary abilities. Her prose writings have been for the most part contributions to the 
Southern Quarterly Review, De Bow's Review, and The Southern Literary Magazine, and 
have dealt.chiefly with questions of political economy. She has written Sophisms of the 
Protective Policy, a translation from Bastiat ; Caius Gracchus, a Tragedy ; and My Dreams, 
a volume of Poems. 

Thomas R. Dew, 1802-1846, was born in King and Queen County, Va., and graduated at 
William and Mary, in which institution he became Professor of Political Economy and His- 
tory in 1827, and President in 1836. The latter position he held until his death. He died 
in France. He was a man of a philosophic turn of mind, and was held in high estimation. 
The following are his chief publications : A Digest of the History and the Laws of Ancient 
and Modern Nations ; Lectures on History ; On the Restrictive System ; On Usury ; On 
Slavery ; The Characteristic Differences between Man and Woman. 

Beverly Tucker, 1784-1851, a son of the jurist, St. George Tucker, was born at Matoax. 
Va., and educated at William and Mary College. He studied law, and in 1815 he removed 
to Missouri, of which State he became a resident, and where he was appointed a Judge. In 
1834, he was elected Law Professor in William and Mary, which position he held till his 
death. Prof Tucker's writings, besides numerous Addresses, etc., are Lectures on Govern- 
ment, and three novels, George Balcombe, Gertrude, and The Partisan Leader. The hiat 
named was a curious piece of anticipative fiction. Though published in 1836, it is dated 
twenty years ahead, and purports to give what would be the state of things iu 1856, when 
Von Buren should be in his third Presidential term, at the head of a consolidated govern- 



240 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ment, and the Southern States, with the exception of Virginia, should have seceded. This 
singular book was reprinted at the beginning of the late war, in 1861, and attracted much 
attention. "He was a brave old Virginia gentleman, a stern States' Rights doctrinaire, 
intense of feeling, jealous of right, and with an eager sense of irony and injury. In his 
style, I regard him as one of the best prose writers of the United States, at once rich, flow- 
ing, and classical ; ornate and copious, yet pure and chaste ; full of energy, yet full of grace ; 
intense, yet stately; passionate, yet never with a forfeiture of dignity." — W. Gilmore Simms. 

George Tucker, 1775-1861, was born in Bermuda, and educated at William and Mary Col- 
lege, Va., under the direction of his relative, Judge St. George Tucker. George studied and 
practised law ; was sent to the Virginia Legislature in 1819-21, and to Congress in 1823 ; and 
was Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in the University of Virginia, 
from 1825 to 1815. After that he lived in retirement, chiefly in Philadelphia. He died in 
Albemarle County, Va. His mind was one of restless activity, and he kept his pen busy 
almost to the last, even after he had gone beyond his eightieth year. In the earlier part of 
his career, he wrote some works of the imagination, which were well received. But imagi- 
nation and fancy were not his forte. His place was rather in the region of philosophy and 
political economy. The following are the titles of some of his works : Essay on Cause and 
Effect; Essay on the Association of Ideas; Essays on Subjects of Taste, Morals, and Na- 
tional Policy; History of the United States, 4 vols., 8vo; Life of Thomas Jefferson, 2 vols., 
8vo ; Political Economy for the People ; Progress of the United States in Population and 
Wealth in Fifty Years ; The Theory of Money and Banks ; Principles of Rent, Wages, and 
Profits ; The Valley of the Shenandoah, a novel, 2 vols. ; A Voyage to the Moon, a satirical 
romance, etc. 

James D. B. Be Bow, 1820-1867, was a native of Charleston, S. C, and a graduate of Charles- 
ton College. He studied law, but devoted himself almost entirely to political economy, 
writing extensivel}^ on comniercial statistics and finance. He edited for a time the South- 
ern Quarterly Review, at Charleston; went thence to New Orleans, where he established 
De Bow's Commercial Review ; and was afterwards Professor of Political Economj' and Sta- 
tistics in the University of Louisiana. He was also for two years Superintendent of the 
United States Census, at Washington, and Compiled the Compendium, and three volumes of 
Statistics, of the Census of 1850. He published Industrial Resources and Statistics of the 
Southern and Western States, 3 vols., 8vo. 

Henry Wheaton. 

Henry Wheaton, 1785-1848, was the first American writer who at- 
tained special eminence in the department of international law. His Ele- 
ments of International Law has become a classic on that subject. 

Mr. Wheaton was a native of Rhode Island, and a graduate of Brown University. From 
1805 to 1807 he partly travelled in Europe and partly studied the Roman Law at Poictiers 
in France. In 1807 he returned to America, and after practising his profession with success 
was appointed Reporter tor the Supreme Court of the United States. 

From 1835 to 1846 he resided at Berlin, at first Charge d'Afliiires and subsequently Minis- 
ter Plenipotentiary to the Court of Prussia. In this, as well as in his other public positions, 
he gained the esteem and friendship of all with whom his ofRcial duties brought him into 
contact. He reckoned among his warm friends many of the most celebrated statesmen and 
men of science in Europe. 

Mr. Wheaton was engaged, at the time of his death, to deliver a course of lectures at the 
Harvard Law School on International Law. 

Mr. Wheatou's works, although not very numerous, are all extremely valuable. Promi- 



PROM 1830 TO 1850. 241 

nent among tliem, of course, is his Elements of International Law. This treatise took from 
its first appeamnce, and has ever since retained, the leading position among all of its class. 
It was acknowledged by authorities in every nation to be the standard work on luternational 
Law, It has run through several editions, the latest of which was the occasion for a serious 
lawsuit l.ctweeu William Be;ich L;iwrence and Richard H. Dana, the former charging the 
latter with literary piracy and iufringement of the copyright l.iw. 

Whcaton's Elements have been translated into French, Chinese, and Japanese, aud have 
been widely read and comuientod upon in every country in Europe. 

Mr. Wheaton was also the author of a History of the Northmen, a History of the Progress 
of the Law of Nations since the Peace of Westphalia (written originally in French, and 
translated under the supervision of William Beach Lawrence), an Inquiry into the Britisli 
Claim of Right to search, etc., and a Discourse on the Progress and Prospects of Germany, 
besides several other discourses and orations. He also published a Digest of the Law of 
Maritime Capture, the Reports of Cases argued in the United States Supreme Court from 
1816-1827, and a Digest of Decisions of the same Court from 1789-1820. 

In his personal manners, Mr. Wheaton was very engaging, and his legal labors have the 
merit of being at once very scholarly and very practicaL 

William Beach Lawrence. 

William Beach Lawrence, 1800 , like his immediate predeces- 
sor Wheaton, and like Kent and Story of a still earlier date, belongs to 
that class of American jurists whose fame extends over both continents. It 
may even be said of Mr. Lawrence in particular, that his reputation is more 
European than American. Much, if not the greater part, of his miscella- 
neous writings first saw the light in English and French law periodicals, 
and his magnum opus, — still unfinished, — A Commentary on the Elements 
of International Law, is now in course of publication in French, by Brock- 
haus in Leipsic. 

Mr. Lawrence is the representative of one of the oldest and best known families in New 
York city. He was graduated at Columbia College in 1818, with distinguished honors. 
After studying the Common law in the office of William Slosson, he passed two years, 
1821-3, in travel through England, France, Italy, and one winter in Paris, in the study of 
the Roman law. 

In 1826 he was appointed Se<y:etary of Legation at London, Mr. Gallatin being ambassador. 
In 1827, when Mr. Gallatin returned to Washington, Mr. Lawrence was made Charg6 
d'Atfaires, and entrusted with the difficult task of carrying out the provisions of the recently 
ratified treaty of peace, and sustaining a protracted diplomatic correspondence with tho 
English Government. Such was the impression made by his diplomatic ability on this occa- 
sion, that Mr. Adams, then President, assured him of the mission to Berlin. The project 
was frustrated, however, by the change of administration under Jackson. 

After revisiting Paris, Mr. Lawrence resumed the practice of law in New York, and gained 
great distinction by several able arguments before the Court of Errors. He also contributed 
largely to the American Annual Register, and other periodicals, and delivered several dis- 
courses before the New York Historical Society, as well as a course of lectures upon Political 
Economy in Columbia College. Mr. Lawrence was thus one of the early advocates in 
America of the Ricardiati theory and of free trade. 

After removing to Rhode Island (1850), he was elected Li€utenant.Govemor, and soon 
after entering office became, by constitutional provi8i(m, Governor of the State. 

On the death of Mr. Wheatou, in 1848, M^. Lawrence undertook, for (l^e b«neflt of tho 
21 Q 



242 AMERICAN LITERATCTRE. 

family of the deceased, the publication of the well-known Elements of International Law. 
The first edition, a large portion of the matter of which was really furnished by Mr. Law- 
rence himself, appeared in 1855, and immediately made Wheaton's name famous in America 
and Europe. It met with universal recognition and adoption in courts and consular offices. 
A second edition, carefully reyised and furnished with elaborate notes bringing the text 
down to date, was published by Mr. Lawrence in 18G3. The appearance of a rival wck, by 
Richard B. Dana, purporting to be original and covering exactly the same ground, led to a 
sharp litigation between Mr. Dana and Mr. Lawrence in the United States Circuit Court for 
Massachusetts. Mr. Lawrence's claims were fully sustained, and Mr. Dana's work declared 
an infringement of the copyright law. 

In 1868 appeared the first volume of Mr. Lawrence's great Commentaire ; in 1869, the 
second volume. Merely to indicate the topics discussed in these two volumes would exceed 
the limits of a sketch such as the present. Suffice it to say that they are exnaustive, and, 
with the volumes yet to come, will constitute by far the completest and most valuable con- 
tribution to internationtil law and diplomatic intercourse in their origin, growth, and present 
status, ever made in this or perhaps any countrj'. 

The Commentaire has already met with the warmest expressions of approval from the lead- 
ing European reviews. Its author carefully refrains from fanciful theories and speculation, 
aiming to make his work a storehouse of positive historical facts and of rights based upon 
treaty. 

Space is wanting even to enumerate Mr. Lawrence's numerous contributions to such peri- 
odicals as the Revue de Droit International, the London Law Magazine, etc., or his brochures 
published from time to time in this country upon topics of international legislation. The 
most recent of them. The Disabilities of American "Women Married Abroad, led to the recom- 
mendation of the author's views by Governor Hoffman in his Message to the State of New 
York. 

Mr. Lawrence's Letters on the Treaty of "Washington, which appeared originally in the 
New York "World, have also been republished, and merit attention more than ever at the 
present moment (1872), when that Treaty is undergoing such grave discussion. 

Upon the whole, Mr. Lawrence's activity as a writer upon international jurisprudence is 
an example, rare indeed in America, of one who has devoted himself with unswerving per- 
sistency to one special line of research, and has attained to the highest distinction in that 
speciality. 

William "Whitnet, 1813 , was born in Concord, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in 

the class of 1833. He studied law, and practised many years in Boston ; was Solicitor of the 
United States "War Department, "Washington, from 1863 to 1865. In this connection he wrote 
an important work, which has passed through many editions, and has been made the basis 
of much executive and legislative action : The War Powers of the President and the Legis- 
lative Powers of Congress, in Relation to Rebellion, Treason, and Slavery. "This work 
first formulated the war powers of the country. It was called for from all quarters, and 
more than one edition was sent for from England, France, and other foreign countries. It 
has passed through ten editions in Boston and seventeen in New York, and is still the hand- 
book of the American statesman. The late editions are printed with the other more recent 
•writings on the same subject, viz., Military Arrests in Time of War; Reconstruction of the 
Union, or The Return of the Rebellious States; and Military Government." — DurjcJcinck's 
Cyc. of Arfier. Lit. 

William Jay, 1789-1858, was a native of New York city, a graduate of Yale, and a son of 
Chief-Justice John Jay. He wrote the Life of John Jay ; Inquiry into the Character and 
Tendency of the American Anti-Slavery Societies ; A View of the Action of the Federal 
Government in behalf of Slavery; A volume of Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery; The 
Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War; War and Peace, an essay recommending 
arbitration instead of war, in the settlement of national disputes. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 243 

Frederick Law Olmsted, 1821 , a native of Connecticut, is widel}' known both as an 

author and as the superintendent (until recently) of the Central Park of New York. He 
is also known as a writer on political and economical subjects. He h<^s published the fol- 
lowing works: Walks and Talks of an American Farmer; A Journey in the Seaboard Slave 
States; A Journey in Texas. His books are characterized by shrewd observation and a 
pleasant style. His accounts of travel iu the South, written before the war, discussed the 
politico-economical aspects of slavery in a very searching manner, and provoked no little 
discussion at the time of their appearance. Mr. Olmsted's labors as chief architect of the 
New York Central Park are evident to every visitor of that city. Tlie park in its present 
magnificent condition is substantially the creation of his energy and engineering skill. 

Joel Parker, LL. D., 1795 , is a native of New Hampshire, and a prominent jurist 

and lawyer of that State, attaining the high position of Chief Justice of the Superior Court; 
also Professor in the Harvard Law School. Judge Parker is the author of a number of purely 
legal publications, and contributed, during the war, many articles and pamphlets on topics 
of political law. Prominent among them are The Right of Secession, Habeas Corpus, and 
Martial Law; The War Power of Congress; The Trent Case, etc., etc. 



Francis Lieber. 

Fbancis Lieber, LL. D., 1800 , Professor of History and Political 

Science in Columbia College, is the author of a large number of works, 
but is best known by his Manual of Political Ethics, and his work on Civil 
Liberty. 

Dr. Lieber is a native of Berlin. He served as volunteer against Napoleon in 1815, and 
was severely wounded at Waterloo. He was persecuted in Germany at various times on 
account of his liberal principles ; he took part in the Greek revolt ; afterwards, in Rome, he 
was kindly received by Niebuhr and made an inmate of the family ; in 1827 he settled 
finally in the United States. From 1835 to 1857, he was Professor of Political Economy in 
the State College of South Carolina ; since then, he has occupied the chair of History and 
Political Science in Columbia College, New York. 

Dr. Lieber is the author of a great number of works and essays on critical, political, his- 
torical, and biographical subjects, and also of several poems of merit. But the works by which 
ho is chiefly known are his Manual of Political Ethics, his Legal and Political Hermeneutics, 
and his treatise On Civil Liberty and Self-Government. These works have earned for their 
author a high reputation as a clear writer and a sound thinker upon the fundamental princi- 
ples of law and government. Theyhave been made text-books in many colleges and acad- 
emies of the United States, and are cited with approval by our most eminent legal tribunals 
and jurists. 

Lieber's Civil Liberty is perhaps the best short exposition yet written of the character of 
Anglo-American liberty, as institutional, in contrast with French democratic absolutism, 
the most stringent of all despotisms. 

In the matter of political economy, Dr. Lieber is a philosophic free-trader, in his own 
words, "an unhesitating advocate of the necessity as well as blessing of the freest possible 
exchange, on grounds of philosophy, religion, civilization, civil liberty, and the commonest 
utilitarian interests, as well as the highest humanitarian ends," 

Hon. Caleb Cushino, 1800 , is a native of Massachusetts and a gniduate of Harvard. 

He has for a long time occupied a prominent position, both in the public affairs of his own 
State, and in those of the United States, He wrote a History of the town of Newburyport ; 
Review of the late Revolution in France, 1833 ; Reminiscences of Spain ; Growth and Terri- 



244 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

torial Progress of the United States; Practical Principles of Political Economy. — Mrs. 
Caleb Gushing has written Letters Descriptive of Public Monuments, Scenery, and Manners, 
in France and Spain. 

Lysander Spooner, 1808 , was born at Petersham, Worcester Co., Mass. He is a vig- 
orous and prolific writer, and has claimed a hearing on several of the current topics of the 
day. The following are some of his publications : The Deist's Reply to the Alleged Super- 
natural Evidences of Christianity; Constitutional Law relative to Credit, Currency, and 
Banking; The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress prohibiting Private Mails; The 
Unconstitutionality of Slavery ; Poverty, its Illegal Causes, and Legal Cure ; A New System 
of Paper Currency, etc., etc. 

General Henry A. S. Dearborn, 1783-1851, a son of General Dearborn of Revolutionary 
memory, was born at Exeter, N. H. He has written several works : Memoir on the Com- 
merce of the Black Sea; Letters on the Internal Improvement and Commerce of the West; 
Biography of Commodore Bainbridge ; Memoir of his Father. 

Theodore Dwight, 1765-1856, was born at Northampton, Mass., and was brother to Presi- 
dent Dwight. He was distinguished as a journalist and politician, and was a prominent 
leader of the old Federal party. He edited the Hartford Mirror, was Secretary of the famous 
Hartford Convention, and founded the New York Daily Advertiser. His publications were 
the following : History of the Hartford Convention ; Character of Thomas Jefferson ; The 
Schoolmasters Friend ; The Father's Book, etc. 

Theodore Lyman, 1792-1849, a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard, was Mayor of 
Boston in 1834, and held several public positions. He wrote Three Weeks in Paris; The 
Political State of Italy ; Account of the Hartford Convention ; and The Diplomacy of the 
United States with Foreign Nations. 

William J. Duane, 1780-1865, son of the Duane mentioned in the previous chapter, was a 
lawyer by profession, and took an active part in politics. He had a famous controversy 
with President Jackson for refusing to withdraw the Government deposits from the United 
States Bank. He was the legal adviser of Stephen Girard, and drew the will of Girard which 
has occasioned so much controversy. He published The Law of Nations Investigated in a 
Popular Manner ; Letters on Internal Improvements, etc. 

Stephen Colwell, 1800-1871, was a native of Virginia, and was educated at Jefferson Col- 
lege, Pa. He studied law, and practised for some years in Pittsburg, but settled finally in 
Philadelphia as an iron merchant. He wrote a good deal on current topics, chiefly on those 
connected with political economy, in which subject he was deeply interested. The follow- 
ing are his principal publications: The Removal of the Deposits from the Bank of the 
United States ; The Relative Position in our Industry of Foreign Commerce, Domestic Pro- 
duction, and Internal Trade; Money on Account; The Ways and Means of Commercial 
Payment. Mr. Colwell wrote also New Themes for the Protestant Clergy, which provoked 
a lively discussion; Politics for American Christians ; Position of Christianity in the States, 
etc., etc. 

George M. Dallas, 1792-1864, a native of Philadelphia, and a prominent statesman, was 
elected Vice-President of the United States, in 1844, and in 1856 was sent as Minister to 
England. He published numerous Addresses and Speeches on various public occasions. 

Job R. Tyson, LL.D., 1804-1858, was a native of Philadelphia, and for a long time a promi- 
nent lawyer of that city. He represented the city in Congress in 1855-57. He was a man of 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 245 

literary culture, and published several valuable essays: Essay on the Penal Laws of Penn- 
sylvania; Lott<^ry System of the United States ; Social and Intellectual State of the Colony 
of Pennsylvania prior to 1743; Letters on the Resources and Commerce of Philadelphia; 
and various separate Discourses, chiefly historical. 

David Paul Brown, 1795-1872, an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia, occasionally turned 
aside from professional to literary pursuits. Besides contributions to periodicals, his sepa- 
rate publications were the following: The Trial, a Tragedy; Sartorius, or the Roman 
Patriot, a Tragedy ; The Prophet of St. Paul's, a Melodrama; Love and Honor, a Farce; The 
Forum, or Forty Years' Full Practice at the Bar, 4 vols. Mr. Brown had a high reputation 
as a forensic speaker, and he wrote with marked skill and effect. 

David Baillte Warden, 1778-1845, was a native of Ireland. He studied medicine at the 
New York Medical College ; was Secretary of Legation in Holland, and for a long time Con- 
sul and Secretary of Legation, of the United States, at Paris, in which city he died. He 
published An Inquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of the 
Negroes, being a translation from the French ; The Origin, Nature, Progress, and Influence 
of Consular Establishments; Description of the District of Columbia; Statistical, Political, 
and Historical Account of the United States, 3 vols., 8vo. 



VI. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. 7 

Benjamin Silliman. 

Benjamin Silliman, LL. D., 1779-1864, "The Nestor of American 
Science" {Edward Everett), is universally known by his works on Chem- 
istry and as the founder of Silliman's Journal of Science and Art. 

Professor Silliman was born in North Stratford, Ct., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 
1796. He was Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology, in Yale, from 1804 to 1855, 
a little over half a century. By the brilliancy of his lectures, his eminence as a man of 
science, and the genial and pervading goodness of heart which formed a prominent trait in 
his character, he contributed largely to the prosperity of the institution. 

Besides his scientific works, Professor Silliman wrote several attractive works of Travel : 
A Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland, 3 vols., 8vo ; Remarks on a Short 
Tour between Hartford and Quebec, 2 vols. ; and A Narrative of a Tisit to Europe in 1851, 
2 vols. He wrote also a work called The Consistency of Discoveries in Modern Geology 
with the Sacred History of the Creation and Deluge, and numerous special Addresses. His 
Life and Correspondence, by Professor Fisher, 2 vols., 8vo, consists to a great extent of Pro- 
fessor Silliman's own writings, and is a charming work. 

Denison Olmsted. 

Denison Olmsted, 1791-1859, long Professor of Natural Philosophy in 
Yale College, was the author of several popular text-books connected with 
his department of science. 

Professor Olmsted was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale. For a long series 
of years previous to his death he occupied the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy 
in that institution. His name is widely known throughout the country as a teacher and a 
21* 



246 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

man of science. His text-books are used largely in American colleges and academies. Tliey 
are : A Compendium of Natural Philosophy ; An Introduction to Natural Philosophy ; An 
Introduction to Astronomy ; A Compend of Astronomy ; and Rudiments of Natural Philoso- 
phy. Besides these popular works, Professor Olmsted contributed many valuable articles to 
the scientific, literary, and educational reviews, and published biographical sketches of 
Professor Mason, President Dwight, Eli Whitney, and others. He will long be rememoered 
by many thousand pupils as an earnest and successful teacher, and a most genial man. 

Joseph Henry. 

Joseph Henry, LL. D., 1797 , is kno-svTi almost exclusively as a 

scientist. His series of annual reports as Secretary of the Sniitksonian 
Institution, however, partake to some extent of a popular character, and 
give him a place in the field of letters, though by no means commensurate 
with his position as a man of science. 

Professsor Henry was born in Albany, N. T. He received a common school education, 
and was for some years a watchmaker. In 1826, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics 
in the Albany Academy, and while in this position began in 1827 a series of original experi- 
ments in electricity, and in 1828 published an account of some of his experiments and discov- 
eries. In 1831, by means of the electro-magnet which he had invented, he transmitted signals 
through a wire at a distance of more than a mile. The development of the idea thus begun 
led to the construction by Professor Morse of the magnetic telegraph. In 1832, Professor 
Henry was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy in the College of New Jersey, which 
position he held until 1846, when on the organization of the Smithsonian Institution at 
Washington, he was appointed its Secretary. In this position, he has achieved a world-wide 
celebrity, not only by his own personal contributions to science, but by his wise measures 
in so directing the policy of the Institution as to have made it a powerful instrumentality 
for the promotion of general science. 

Alexander Dallas Bache. 

Alexander Dallas Bache, LL. D., 1806-1867, a distinguished phi- 
losopher, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, achieved the crown- 
ing glory of his life in the successful prosecution of the work of the United 
States Coast Survey. Apart from that, however, his success in other de- 
partments of science and letters would have given him a lasting place in 
the national history. 

Professor Bache was a native of Philadelphia. He was educated at West Point, where he 
graduated with the highest honors in 1825. He became Professor of Mathematics in the 
Uuiversity of Pennsylvania in 1827. 

In 1836 he was appointed President of Girard College, the buildings of which were then 
approaching completion, and was sent to Europe to inspect the charitable foundations of 
the Old World, and prepare a plan for the organization of the College. On his return, he 
published in 1839 a large volume, containing his Report on the European System of Educa- 
tion. The College being not yet ready to go into operation, he became in 1S41 the first 
Principal of the Philadelphia High-School, which had been established in 183S without any 
oflScial head, and which he reorganized. 

In 1812, he returned to the University as Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, 
which place he resigned in 1843, on being appointed Superintendent of the United States 
Coast Survey. This last position he held to the time of his death, in 1867. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 247 

Professor Baclic's publications, with the exception of the Report on Education in Europe, 
before naujcd, and his Reports on the Phihidelpliia High-School, are all of a scientific char- 
acter, and are very numerous: Observjitionsat the M;u;aetic aud Meteorological Oh.servatory 
at the Girard College, 3 void.; Annual Reports of the Coast Survey, in more than twenty lai-go 
4to volumes, besides papers almost without number ou the transactions of the various scien- 
tific bodies of which he was a member. 

Franklin Bache, M. D., 1792-1864, a cousin of Dallas Bache, and a great-grandson of Dr. 
Franklin, was a native of Philadelphia, and a gnuluate of the University of Pennsylvania, 
and for the last twenty-three jears of his life Professor of Chemistry in the JeflFerson 
Medical College of Philadelphia. He was also for a time President of the American Philo- 
sophical Society. His contributions to medical science were very numerous, both as separate 
volumes and as articles in scientific journals. The one best known is that prepared jointly 
by him and his colleague, Dr. Wood, The Dispensatory of the United States, familiarly 
known in the profession, and among apothecaries, as " Wood and Bache." The only pub- 
lication of his, not strictly professional, was Letters to Roberts Vaux on the Separate Con- 
finement of Prisoners. 

Robley Dunglison. 

EoBLEY DuxGLisoN, M. D., LL. D., 1798-1869, was for almost half a 
century one of tl\e great ornaments of the medical profession in America. 
His chief publications, A Medical Dictionary, and Human Physiology, 
though intended mainly for the medical profession, are not without inter- 
est to the general reader. 

Dr. Dunglison was an Englishman by birth; he studied medicine in London, Edin- 
burgh, Paris, and Erlangen in Germany. He was invited to the United States by JeflFerson, 
in 1821, to fill a chair in the new University of Virginia. He left that position for one in 
M^iryland in 1833, and finally, in 1836, he accepted the chair of Institutes of Medicine in 
the Jefferson Medical School, Philadelphia, where he remained until within a few months 
of his death. His publications were exceedingly numerous, and many of them, from the 
nature of their subjects, were upon that ordiir of land which lies between the domains of pure 
science and popular literature. His Medical Dictionary, of which 60,000 copies were sold, is 
a work for every library. Among his numerous other works may be named Human Phj'si- 
ology; Elements of Hygiene; General Therapeutics; Practice of Medicine, etc., etc. 

In 1872, a posthumous work, A History of Medicine, was published, edited by his son 
Richard J. Dunglison, M.D. 

Dr. Dunglison took an active part in the management of various philanthropic institu- 
tions, and published various Lectures and Addresses in their behalf. 

Ormsbt MacKnight Mitchel, 1810-1862, was a native of Kentucky and a graduate of West 
Point. He distinguished himself as an astronomer, and as a popular writer and lecturer on 
that subject. The Observatory at Cincinnati was due to his exertions. In 1859 ho Iwcanie 
the Director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany. On the breaking out of the civil war, he 
took an active part in the conflict on the Union side, and met with distinguished 8ucce.ss. 
He died of yellow fever at Beaufort, S. C. His published works are The Planetary and 
Stellar Worlds ; and The Orbs of Heaven. 

ROBEBT Owen, 1771-1858, father of the three named below, was a well-known socialist and 
founder of the sect called the Owcnitcs. Originally Mr. Owen was a cotton-spinner in Eng- 
land and Scotland. In 182.^ he purchased a large tract of land in Indiana and established 
a settlement to which ho gave the name of New Harmony, and which was intended to carry 



248 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

ont his peculiar socialistic riews. These riews had been already set forth in his -vrorks enti- 
tled A New Tiew of Society, Obsers-ations on the Effects of the Manufacturing System, &c. 
The Colony of New Ilarmony was a failure, and Mr. Owen returned to England, where he 
continued to advocate his peculiar views to a small circle of believers. Whatever may be 
thought of the soundness of those views, there seems to be no doubt but that Mr. Owen liim- 
self was a man of energy, sincerity, business abilities, at least in early life, and actuated by 
unselfish motives. He had in 1829 a public Del ate, in Cincinnati, with the celebrated Alex- 
ander Campbell, in regard to the truth of Christianity', he denying and Campbell afiBrming. 
The Debate was published in a large 8vo vol. 

RoBEKT D.\XE Owen, 1801 , son of Robert Owen, was bom in Lanarkshire, Scotland, 

but emigrated while very young with his father and brothers to Indiana. Mr. Owen has 
been a prominent member of the Democratic party in the West, and represented the United 
States at the court of Naples for five years. He edited the Free Inquirer, and has contributed 
a number of articles to the press. His principal publications are On Education, and Foot- 
falls on the Boundary of Another "World. The latter work is a collection of so-called spirit- 
ual manifestations, that is, of incidents and phenomena sujiposed to prove the existence 
around us of a spirit world that occasionally reveals itself to our senses. Mr. Owen is a 
strong advocate of the credibility of Spiritualism, and a clear, able writer. He has published 
a political pamphlet on the Wrongs of Slavery, and, verj^ recently, a novel, Beyond the 
Breakers. 

David Dale Owen, 1S07-1S60, another son of Robert Owen, emigrated to the United States, 
and rose to eminence as State geologist for several of the States. In this capacity he ex- 
amined and reported upon the geology of Indiana, Iowa, Minnesdt-a, Wisconsin, Illinois, 
Kentucky, etc. The results of his explorations are embodied in a number of State and United 
States official repoiis. 

Richard Owf.n, M.D., 1810 , like his brothers, Robert and David, emigrated to the 

United States, and has since remained here. He has been connected with various edu- 
cational institutions in the West and South-West, and has published a Key to the Geology 
of the Globe, and many essays on scientific and educational subjects. 

Samuel G; Morton, M.D., 1799-1 S51, was a native of Philadelphia. After spending some 
time in a counting-house, he studied medicine, first in Philadelphia, and afterwards in Edin- 
burgh. He became a Professor in the Pennsylvania Medical College and President of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences. Besides numerous special contributions to science, he pub- 
lished two works, Crania Americana, and Crania Egyptiaca, which led to much discussion, 
and gave the author a place among the most eminent ethnologists of the world. 

George R. Gliddox, 1808-1857, was born in England, but became a resident of the United 
States the latter ])art of his life. He spent twenty-three ye^rs in Egypt, where his father 
was United States Consul. Mr. Gliddon wrote several works on Egyptian antiquities, and 
lectured extcnsivelj' on the subject in the United States. He was a shallow man, with ready 
utterance, and large i)retensions to science, and he acquired a temporary notoriety, which 
was very general. But he is already nearly forgotten. He died at Panama. Ilis works 
were: Ancient Egypt, Her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, History, and Archaeology; Ajjpeal 
to the Antiquaries of Europe on tlie Destruction of the Monuments of Eg3-pt; Discourses 
on Egyptian Archa3ology ; A Memoir on the Cotton of Egypt; Otia Egyptiaca; The Types 
of Mankind, or Ethnological Researches. The work last named was the one which was 
criticized with greatest sevei'ity. He was assisted in its preparation by J. C. Nott, M.D., of 
Mobile. The work contained also contributions from Agassiz and from the unedited papers 
of Dr. Morton of Philadelphia. In it Gliddon attempted to set up a theory in regard to the 
creation of the human race entirely at variance with the facts recorded in the Bible. The 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 249 

eliallo-wness both of his scientific knowledge and of his biblical learning, to which also he 
made pretensions, was exposed in various quarters, but by no one with more ability than by 
Dr. Bachman, a learned naturalist and theologian, of Charleston, S. C. 

JosiAH C. NoTT, M. D., 1804 , was a native of Columbia, S. C. He studied medicine in 

Philadelphia and afterwards in Paris and London. lie practised for a time in his native 
State, and then removed to Mobile and Alabama. In conjunction with Mr. Gliddon he pub- 
lished two works which made a good deal of noise. Types of Mankind, and Indigenous Races 
of the Earth. He also wrote The Physical History of the Jewish Races. 

John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., 1790 , is a native of New York, but resident of South Caro- 
lina, where chiefly his intellectual activity has been exercised. His profession is that of a 
clergyman, but he has a taste for natural science, and has given much time to its prosecution. 
He assisted Audubon in the preparation of his great works, and was the principal author 
of that on Quadrupeds. His other works are : Defence of Luther and the Reformation ; Doc- 
trine of the Unity of the Human Races; Notice of "The Types of Mankind" (Nott and 
Gliddon's work); Examination of the Charges in the Biography of Dr. Morton; Exami- 
nation of Dr. Agassiz's Natural Provinces of the Animal "World; Characteristics of Genera 
and Species as applicable to the Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race. Dr. Bachman's 
writings have been chiefly of two kinds, those descriptive of natural history, and those de- 
fending the Bible account of nature on scientific grounds. 

Professor Hitchcock. 

Edwabd Hitchcock, D. D., LL. D., 1793-1864, distinguished liimself 
especially in the department of Geology. His various works on that sub- 
ject have been valuable, not only as text-books for schools and colleges, but 
in vindicating the consistency of geology with religion. 

Prof. Hitchcock was born at Deerfield, Mass. When a young man, he taught the Academy 
in his native town; afterwards he was ordained to the ministry and preached at Conway ; 
then he became Professor, and finally President, of Amherst College. Later in life, he re- 
signed the Presidency' and returned to his Professorship, in order to have nlore time for 
scientific pursuits. He made a geological survey of Massachusetts, and was also a commis- 
sioner in behalf of the State to visit the Agricultural Schools of Europe. Besides his scien- 
tific publications, which are numerous, he wrote: Elementary Geology; Religion of Geology 
and its Connected Science; Religious Truth illustrated from Science; Lectures on Diet, 
Regime, and Employment; Religious Lectures on the Peculiar Phenomena of the Four 
Seasons ; An Argument for Early Temperance, etc. 

Daniel Drake, :M.D., 1785-1852, an older brother of Benjamin Drake, and a native of 
Plainfield, N. J., studied medicine in Pbiladelpliia, and became very distinguished as a prac- 
titioner and a teacher of medicine in Cincinnati. He was Professor in the Ohio Medical 
College, the Cincinnati Medical College, the Transylvania Medical College, Louisville, Ky., 
and finally in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. His publications are numerous, 
but are chiefly professional. The largest, on The Diseases of the Interior Valley of North 
America, is in high repute for its original investigations, and contains a vast amount of in- 
formation on physical geography in connection with its account of local diseases. Other 
works, of a popular kind: Pictures of Cincinnati; Practical Essays on Medical Education, 
etc. 

John Cassin, 181:M869, a naturalist, was born in Pennsylvania, and was an active member 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. His works are the fullowing: Illustra- 
tions of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America; Mammalogy 



250 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and Ornithology of the United States Exploring Expedition under Lieutenant "Wilkes; 
American Ornithology, intended as a continuation of Audubon. 

James P. Espy, 1785-1860, was a native and resident of Pennsylvania. He was a zealous 
student of meteorology, and maintained the theory that, by proper mechanical agencies 
within the control of man, it was practicable at any time to produce storms. He published 
The Philosophy of Storms. 

John K. Townsend, 1809-1851, an eminent naturalist, was born in Philadelphia. He pub- 
lished A Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, etc., 2 vols., Svo ; Ornithology 
of the United States. 

William S. W. Ruschenberger, M.D., 1807 , a surgeon in the United States Navy, has 

attained distinction by the number and value of his publications. He was born in Cumber- 
land County, N. J., and studied medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 
1830. His principal works are Three Weeks in the Pacific ; A Toyage Round the World; 
Notes and Commentaries During a Voyage to Brazil and China; Elements of Natural His- 
tory ; The Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of the Academy of Natural Sciences in 
Philadelphia. 

John L. D. Comstock, M. D., 1789-1858, a native of Connecticut, was the author of numerous 
school-books, some of which have had a large sale : Introduction to Mineralogy ; Natural 
History of Birds ; Natural History of Quadrupeds ; Introduction to Botany ; Elements of 
Chemistry (sale, 250,000 copies); Elements of Geology ; Outlines of Physiology ; Mathemat- 
ical and Physical Geography; Youth's Book of Natural Philosophy; Common School Phil- 
osophy ; Youth's Book of Astronomy ; Young Botanist ; Young Chemist ; History of Precious 
Metals ; Cabinet of Curiosities ; History of the Greek Revolution. 

James Renwick, LL. D., 1792-1863, was a native of the city of New York, and a graduate 
of Columbia College, in the class of 1807. He was afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy 
in the same, and Topographical Engineer in the service of the United States, with the rank 
of Major. He published, besides several strictly scientific works, Outlines of Natural Phil- 
osophy ; First Principles of Chemistry and of Natural Philosophy ; Application of the Sci- 
ence of Mechanics to Practical Purposes ; Life of De Witt Clinton ; Life of John Jay. 

John Bell, M. D., 1796-1872, was a native of Ireland, but after 1810 was a resident of the 
United States. Dr. Bell is widely known as a medical lecturer, and as a popular writer on 
medical subjects. His principal publications are Baths and Mineral Waters; Baths, and the 
Water Regimen ; Mineral and Thermal Springs of the United States and Canada; Health and 
Beauty; Regimen and Longevity ; Lectures on the Practice of Physic. He has edited some 
of the leading medical journals of the United States for a long number of years. 

James Thacher, M. D., 1754-1844, was born at Barnstable, Mass., and oflRciated as surgeon 
in the chief battles of the Revolution. He settled afterwards at Plymouth, Mass. He wrote 
A Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War; American Medical Biography ; 
American Orchardist; A Practical Treatise on tlie Management of Bees; Essay on Demon- 
ology. Ghosts, Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions ; A History of the Town of Plymouth ; 
and some medical works. 

Thomas Sewell, M. D., 1787-1845, a native of Augusta, Me., became Professor of Anatomy 
in Columbia College, Washington, in 1^21, and remained in that position until his death. 
The publication by which he is chiefly known is The Pathology of Drunkenness, which was 
translated into German, and was largely circulated both in America and Europe. 



from' 1830 TO 3 850. 251 

Jacoh Bigelow, M. D., 1787 , is a native of Massacluisctts, and a graduate of Harvard, 

and Professor of Materia Medica and Botany in the same. Dr. Bigelow is widely known by 
his medical writings and his contributions to science. lie h.-is also written some works of 
a popular chai-acter, as The Useful Arts considered in Connection with the Applications of 
Science, 2 vols., and numerous witty pieces of poetry of a fugitive kind. 

WoRTHiNGTOX HooKER, M. D., 1806-1867, was born in Springfield, Mass., and graduated at 
Yale College, where ho was afterwards a Professor. Ke is the autlior of several essays of a 
popular character, and of a series of excellent elementary text-books : Child's Book of 
Common Things ; Child's Book of Nature, in three parts, treating severally of Plants, Ani- 
mals, Air, Water, etc. ; First Book of Physiology ; Human Physiology for Schools and 
Colleges ; Natural History ; Natural Philosophy ; First Book in Chemistry ; Mineralogy and 
Geology. Besides these text-books, he published Homoeopathy ; Lessons from the History 
of Medical Delusions ; Physician and Patient ; The Medical Profession and the Community ; 
Rational Therapeutics. 

William F. Ltxch, U. S. N., 1805-1865, was a native of Virginia. He made an expedition 
to explore the Dead Sea, of which he published an interesting account : Narrative of the 
United States Exploring Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. The work had 
a large popular sale, and its scientific results were of high value, adding largely to the 
know^ledge of the physical geography of that interesting region. 

Dr. Kane. 

Emsha Kent Kane, M. D., 1820-1857, made himself known through- 
out the civilized world by his Arctic explorations and his heroic attempts 
to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin. His works, describing these 
explorations of the north polar regions, are at the same time valuable as 
contributious to science, and brilliant as specimens of English composition. 

Dr. Kane was a native of Philadelphia, a son of the Hon. John K. Kane. Dr. Kane studied 
at the University of Virginia and in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. He was appointed surgeon in the United States navy, and also served in his medical 
capacity in the Mexican war. He is chiefly known, however, as an Arctic explorer. 

In 1850 he accompanied, as Senior Medical Officer, the first Grinnell Expedition in search 
of Sir John Franklin, and published in 1853 an account of the expedition. In 1853 he sailed 
again to the Arctic regions, as commander of the second Grinnell Expedition. The party 
•did not return until 1855, and in 1856 Dr. Kane published his account, in 2 vols., 8vo, hand- 
somely illustrated. The labors of composition bore too heavily upon a constitution already 
undermined by fatigue and exposure, and the author died in February, 1857, at Havana, 
where he had gone in the vain search after health. An interesting biography of Dr. Kane 
was published in 1858, by Dr. Elder. 

Dr. Kane's merits, not merely as a naturalist and a daring explorer, but as a writer, are 
conspicuous in his works, especially in his account of the second expedition. The narnitive 
of the dangers and sufferings of the party is given with a simplicity and vividness that place 
the work in the foremost rank of descriptive writings. 

Samuel W. Williams, LL.D., 1812 , was born at Utica, N. Y. He went to China as a 

missionary in 1835, and has resided there since that time, latterly as Secretary of Legation 
and Interpreter to the American Embassy. He has written the Middle Kinglom, a survey 
of the geography, government, education, social life, arts, and religion of the Cliiueso Em- 
pire; A Chinese Commercial Guide ; An English and Chinese Vocabulary, etc. 



252 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Samuel Tyler, LL.D., 1809 , a native of Prince George's County, Md., has been for many- 
years a practising lawyer at Frederick City, in that State. While pursuing diligently his pro- 
fessional career, he has redeemed the leisure to make himself eminent as a writer on meta- 
physical science. Mr. Tyler is probably, with the exception of Dr. McCosh, the ablest living 
interpreter of Sir William Hamilton in the United States. The first book which led him 
into tliis line of study was Eeid's Inquiry into the Human Mind. He has written a large 
number of articles for the Princeton Review, mostly on metaphysical subjects. He has 
published The Progress of Philosophy ; Discourse on the Baconian Philosophy; Burns as a 
Poet and as a Man ; Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, LL. D. He has also written some law 
works, aud is Senior Professor in Columbian College Law School, at Washington City. 

Henry Vethake, LL.D., 1792-1866, was a native of Guiana. He removed to the United 
States at the age of four ; graduated at Columbia College; studied law, but afterwards gave 
his attention to the study of mathematics. He was Professor in Rutgers College in 1813; in 
Princeton College, 1817-21; again in Princeton ; in the University of New York, in 1832; 
President of Washington College, Lexington, Va. ; Professor, and afterwards Provost, in the 
University of Pennsylvania, 1836-59 ; Professor in the Polytechnic College, Philadelphia, 
1859-66. He edited the Supplementary volume of the Encyclopedia Americana, and wrote 
most of the articles; also, The Principles of Political Economy. 

Charles Daties, LL. D., 1798 , distinguished as a mathematician, was Professor of 

Mathematics, first at West Point, 1824-1837 ; and afterwards in Columbia College, New York. 
He is a native of Connecticut. He is widely and most favorably known as the author of a 
series of mathematical works for teaching that branch of science, beginning with the first 
lessons in arithmetic, suited to the primary school, and ascending regularly to the highest 
branches studied in college. The sale of these works, particularly of the elementary por- 
tion of the series, has been enormous. First Lessons in Arithmetic ; Intellectual Arithme- 
tic; School Arithmetic; Grammar of Arithmetic; University Arithmetic; Elementary Al- 
gebra; Elementary Geometry; Practical Mathematics; Bourdon's Algebra; Legendre's 
Geometry; Elements of Surveying; Analytical Geometry; Differential aud Integral Calcu- 
lus ; Descriptive Geometi-y ; Shades, Shadows, and Perspective; Logic of Mathematics; 
Mathematical Dictionary. 

James B. Thompson, LL. D., , a native of Springfield, Vt., and a graduate of Yale 

of the class of 1831, has published a complete series of mathematical school-books, beginning 
with primary arithmetic and extending to geometry and surveying. The series has been 
received with favor, and enjoys a large circulation, 

Thomas Ewbank, 1792-1870, was born in England, but in 1820 emigrated to the United 
States. He was appointed Commissioner of Patents in 1849. He has written several works 
descriptive of mechanical processes: Hydraulics, a Descriptive and Historical Account of 
Hydraulic and other Machines for Raising Water ; the World a Workshop; Thoughts on 
Water and Force; Life in Brazil; Reminiscences in the Patent Office. "It [Hydraulics] is 
full of the gossip of the art ; it is just such a book as any amateur of mechanics would allow 
to be open on his table for the purpose of passing the little fragments of his time in occu- 
pations of a light and useful description." — London Athenseum. 



Joseph E. Worcester. 

Joseph E. Worcester, LL. D., 1784-1865, contested with Noah Web- 
ster the palm for lexicography. Worcester's English Dictionary is cer- 
tainly one of the best that has ever been written, and by a large portion 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 253 

of the soundest American scholars is accepted as the best standard of the 
English language. 

Dr. Worcester was born in Bedford, N. H. He graduated at Yale, in the class of 1811 ; was 
engaged for some years in teaching ; studied for two years in Andover ; and in 1820 removed 
to Cambridge, where most of his remaining years were spent. 

Dr. "Worcester's first publications were in tlie line of geography and history. He pub- 
lished in 1818 A Geograpliical Dictionary, a Universal Gazetteer, in 2 vols. This was followed 
by A Gazetteer of the United States ; Elements of Geography, Ancient and Modern ; Epitome 
of Geography ; Sketches of the East and its Inhabitants ; Elements of History, Ancient and 
Modern; Epitome of History ; Chissical and Scriptural Geography. 

His labors in the field of lexicography, by which almost exclusively he is now known, 
appear to have been begun with the superintending of a new edition of Johnson in 1828. He 
wa.s next employed in making an abridgment of Webster's large work, after which he began 
to labor on his own account as an independent lexicographer, his labors culminating in 1846 
in his Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language, large 8vo. 

Dr. Worcester still labored at his work, revising and making additions, until 1860, when 
it appeared as a royal quarto of 1843 pages. In this, its final form, it has been the compet- 
itor of Webster. 

Dr. Worcester's work is published in six difiFercnt forms, from the small Primary up to the 
Royal Quarto. There is also a Series of Spellers, prepared by Dr, Worcester, on the samo 
principles as the Dictionary. 

Dr. Worcester's work is the fruit of long years of unremitted and conscientious labor, and 
is in the highest degree creditable to his scholarship and his critical sagacity. 

Chauxcet a. Goodrich, D.D., 1790-1860, was a native of New Haven and a graduate of Yale, 
and afterwards Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in the same. An important service ren- 
dered by him to the cause of literature was his labor bestowed upon editing, revising, and 
perfecting Webster's Dictionary. 

Dr. Goodrich was a son-in-law of Webster, and naturally was interested in making this 
great work as perfect an exponent as possible of the present state of English lexicography. 
The Dictionary in its present state is a great improvement upon the original work of Dr. 
Webster, and for the series of changes and additions by which this improvement has been 
brought about, we are largely indebted to Prof. Goodrich, though he died before the work 
received its final form in the Revised Edition of 1864. The part contributed specifically by 
him was the portion on Synonyms. He efifected also a modification of the extreme views 
of Dr. Webster in regard to the spelling and pronunciation — a concession which aided 
much in giving the work a general acceptance. 

Dr. Goodrich gave another most valuable contribution to literature in the publication of 
a large volume, 947 pp. 8vo, entitled Select British Eloquence, containing the best speeches 
entire of the most eminent orators of Great Britain for the last two centuries, with sketches 
of their lives, an estimate of their genius, and notes critical and explanatory. The biographi- 
cal and critical matter in this work contains the substance of the author's lectures on tho 
English orators. 

"This bulky volume performs more than it promises. It is not only a collection, made 
with excellent taste and judgment, of the best specimens of English eloquence, whether 
parliamentary, forensic, or popular, but the biographical and illustrative matter annexed is 
copious enough to form a tolerably complete political history of England from Queen Anne's 
time to the present day. At any rate, a full acquaintance with the contents of this volume, 
taking the speeches and the commentary together, would be a very useful ajipendage to 
that knowledge of the political events of tlie period which may be derived from works pro- 
fessedly historical or biographical in their character." — iV(W(A Atnerican Review. 
22 



25i AMERICAK LITERATURE 



Professor Marsh. 

George P. Maksh, L L. D., 1801 , has bestowed mucli labor upon 

the study of English philology. His Lectures on the English Language, 
and Lectures on Early English Literature, are standard works on that 
subject. 

Prof. Marsh is a native of "Woodstock, Tt., and a graduate of Dartmouth. He is a lawyer 
by profession, but has spent a large part of his life in foreign diplomacy. He was Resident 
Minister of the United States at Constantinople, from 1849 to 1853. Since 1861 he has been 
United States Minister to Italy. He has been a diligent student of language and philology, 
and his publications on linguistic and literary subjects are in high repute. 

Prof. Marsh's works are Lectures on the English Language ; the Origin and History of 
the English Language, and of the Literature which it embodies ; Man and Nature, or Physi- 
cal Geography Modified by Human Action ; A Compendious Grammar of the Icelandic, com- 
piled from Trask; The Camel, his Organization, Habits, and Uses. This last mentioned 
volume was intended to facilitate the introduction of tbe camel as a means of transporta- 
tion over the desert plains in the south-western part of the United States. The iron horse, 
however, has been found a better freight-bearer. 

Prof. Marsh's two volumes on the English Language entitle him to a prominent place in 
its literature. They are the fruits of original reading and study, and are marked by breadth 
of view and soundness of judgment. 

William Chauncey Fowler, LL.D., 1793 , is known by his elaborate and able works 

on the grammar of the English language. 

Dr. Fowler was born in Clinton, Conn. He graduated at Yale, in the class of 1816. He 
was for five years Tutor at Yale; eleven years Professor of Chemistry and Natural History 
in Middlebury; and five years Professor of Rhetoric in Amherst. 

After leaving Amherst, he occupied himself mainly with literary labor. His published 
works are the following : The English Language in its Elements and Forms, 8vo, an elabo- 
rate treatise, on the basis of Latham; Elementary English Grammar; English Grammar for 
Schools ; Memorials of the Chaunceys ; The Sectional Controversy, a passage in the political 
history of the United States; A History of Durham, Conn.; and numerous pamphlets, 
addresses, etc. 

Dr. Fowler married a daughter of Noah Webster, the lexicographer, and has bestowed 
much labor in preparing for the press various editions of Webster's Dictionary. 

Cornelius C. Felton, LL.D., 1807-1862, was one of the most eminent Greek scholars that 
America has yet produced. He was a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Hars-ard. 
He became Tutor in that institution in 1829, Professor of Greek in 1834, and finally Presi- 
dent in 1860. He published critical editions of Homer's Iliad; Panegyrics of Isoci-ates ; The 
Clouds and The Birds, of Aristophanes; The Agamemnon, of .^schylus; also, A Greek 
Reader. He contributed more than fifty articles to the North American Review, besides 
numerous articles in the Christian Examiner, and the Bibliotheca Sacra. He wrote also 
Greece, Ancient and Modern, 2 vols., a course of Lectures before the Lowell Institute Prof. 
Felton wrote several articles also for Appleton's Cyclopsediii, among them those on Agassiz, 
Athens, Attica, Demosthenes, Euripedes, and Homer. 

JosiAH WiLLARD GiBBS, LL.D., 1790-1S61, an eminent philologist, was bom at Salem, Mass. 
He graduated at Yale, in the class of 1S09 ; was Tutor there from 1311 to 1815 ; and Profes- 
sor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary, from 1824 to 1801. His works are the 
following : A Translation of Storr's Historical Sense of the New Testament ; A Translation 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 255 

of Gesenius's Hebrew Lexicon; A Manual Hebrew and English Lexicon, abridged from 
Gesenius; Philological Studies; Latin Analyst ; besides contributions to the revised edition 
of Webster's Dictionary, and to Fowler's English Language. 



Dr. Taylor of Andover. 

Samuel H. Taylor, LL. D., 1807-1S71, known all over the land as the 
Principal of Phillips Academy, at Andover, Mass., comes nearer perhaps 
than any other American has done, to the world-famous Arnold of Kugby. 

Dr. Taylor did so great a work as a teacher that it dwarfs him to speak of his authorship. 
His work in the field of letters however was respectable. He prepared A Guide for Writing 
Latin, being a translation from the German of Krebs. In connection with Dr. B. B. Edwards, 
he translated Kilhner's Greek Grammar, and he compiled from it An Element<ary Greek 
Grammar. He wrote A Method of Classical Study, and a work called Classical Study, con- 
sisting of extracts from the opinions of eminent men in regard to the value of classical 
studies, with an introduction by himself. He also aided in editing the Bibliotheca Sacra, 
and wrote for it. 

What he did in these several works was done with the most scholarly accuracy, and has 
been of use in pnmioting accurate scholarship in others. But the great work of his life 
was done in the school-room, on the minds of the six thousand pupils who during a period 
of thirty-four years came under the direct magnetism of his powerful mind. 

Dr. Taylor was born in the old township of Londomlerrj', N. H., and was of Scotch-Irish 
descent. He was graduated at Dartmouth, in the class of 1832 ; studied theology at Andover ; 
was Tutor for a time at Dartmouth; became Principal of the famous Phillips Academy at 
Andover in 1837, and retained the position until his death in 1871. 



Charles Anthon. 

Charles Anthon, LL. D., 1797-1867, is known almost exclusively by 
his series of Greek and Latin text-books. He stands in this line at the 
head of American scholars. 

Prof. Anthon was a native of the city of New York, and for a long time Professor of An- 
cient Languages in Columbia College. As already stated, he is widely known by his Greek 
and Latin school-books, his editions of classical authors for school and college use, and his 
large works on Greek and Roman Antiquities, Ancient and MediaeviU Geography, his Clas- 
sical Dictionary, etc., amounting in all to about 50 vols. The series has been very popular. 
The preparation of it required varied and extensive learning and a vast amount of labor. 
The use of his editions as text-books has been objected to on the ground of their furnishing 
the student with undue facilities, the "notes" bejng for the most part equivalent to a trans- 
lation. Dr. Anthon never travelled into any of the walks of authorship outside of his own 
chosen path as a writer and commentator in aid of cliissical scholarship. But in that walk 
he has won for himself a distinguished and honorable name. 

Ethan Allen Andrews, LL.D., 1787-1858, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale, 
and at one time Professor of Ancient Languages in the University of North Carolina. Espe- 
cially known as the author of a comprehensive Latin-English Dictionary, founded on the 
great German work of Freund. He is also the author of a Latin Grammar, Latin Lessons, 
and numerous other elementary classical school-books. 



256 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

John J. OwEN', D.D., lSOS-1869, the well known Professor of Greek and Latin in the Free 
Academy of New York city, was born at Kingsborough, N. Y., and graduated at Middlebary 
College, in the class of 1828. He studied theology at Andover. He has published several 
text-books of Greek authors, which have had a large sale : Xenophon's Anabasis, Xenophon's 
Cyropaedia, Thucydides, and Homers Iliad and Odyssey. Besides these, he has published 
some valuable commentaries on portions of the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Johr, and 
Acts. 

Chahles T. Follex, I. U. D., 1796-1840, was a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. He 
was an advanced liberal in his opinions, and being proscribed by the Holy Alliance, he made 
his escape to the United States, where he first obtained employment through the interpo- 
sition of Lafayette. He became Professor of German in Harvard University. He perished 
in the burning of the Lexington, on the Hudson River, in 1840. He published a German 
Grammar, German Reader, and wrote various articles and reviews. His works, in 5 vols., 
were edited by his widow. 

Mrs.Euza Lee (Cabot) Follen, 1787-1859, was a native of Boston, and the wife of Prof. Fol- 
len. Besides editing the works of her husband, she published Sketches of Married Life; The 
Skeptic ; Twilight Stories ; Little Songs, and other books for children. 

Rev. Peter Bullions, D. D., 1791-1864, a distinguished teacher and writer of school-books, 
was a native of Scotland, but spent the main part of his life in Albany. His school-books 
have been numerous, and are of a high order of merit: English, Latin, and Greek Gram- 
mar ; Latin and Greek Readers ; school editions of Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, and Virgil. 

GooLD Brown, 1791-1857, is well known as a writer on English Grammar. His publications 
are First Lines of English Grammar; Institutes of English Grammar; Grammar of English 
Grammars. The latter is intended as a digest of all that has been written on the subject, for 
the information of teachers and advanced students; the two former are text-books for 
schools. The books have had a wide sale. 

Dr. James Rush. 

James Eush, M.D., 1786-1869, is widely known by his work on The 
Philosophy of the Human Voice. 

Dr. Rush was a native of Philadelphia, and son of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush. Dr. 
James Rush led the life of a recluse, a consumer rather than a producer of books. He waa 
a man of keen and decided, but rather eccentric mental powers, and stood opposed, in many 
particulars, to the spirit of his age and his country. One of his chief aversions was the 
daily newspaper, which he considered the great demoralizer of sound thinking and correct 
spelling. The only work of his that is at all known is his treatise on the Philosophy of 
the Human Voice, which has gone through six editions. It is considered by competent 
critics to be not only a standard work but thoroughly exhaustive of the subject. It has 
been made the basis for a large number of popular and school treatises. 

By his will. Dr. Rush left his estate of more than a million dollars to the Philadelphia 
Library, but the gift unfortunately is coupled with such severe, not to say absurd, conditions 
that the Library will probably be unable to accept it. 

William Russell, 1798 , the well-known elocutionist, is a native of Glasgow, Scotland, 

and a graduate of the University of that city. He began teaching in Augusta, Ga., in 1817. 
He was afterwards Principal of an Academy in Savannah, and then of the Latin School, 
New Haven, Conn.; Instructor in Elocution in Boiiton, Cambridge, and Andover; Principal 



II 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 257 

of Merrimack Normal Institute, N. II. ; Director of the New England Normal Institute, Lan- 
caster, Mass. He has published several valuable school-books, chiefly on elocution : Ameri- 
can Elocutionist; Orthophony, or the Culture of the Voice; Elements of Musical Articu- 
lation; Lessons in Enunciation; Vocal Culture; Rudiments of Gesture ; Pulpit Elocution ; 
Grammar of Composition, etc. " Mr. Russell has been well known for thirty years or more 
as an elocutionist of rare taste, skill, and power, and as an eminently efficient teacher." — 
A. P. Peabody, JV. A. Pev. 

Andrew Comstock, M. D.,1795 , attained considerable notoriety aa an Elocutionist and 

as the inventor of a system of Phonetics. lie published New System of Phonetics ; Phonetic 
Speaker; Phonetic Reader; Phonetic New Testament ; Elocution, etc. He was a native of 
New York, but resided in Philadelphia. 

Richard Green P-ARKER, 1798 , son of the late Bishop Parker, was born in Boston, and 

graduated at Cambridge in the class of 1817. After teaching in several other places, he was 
placed, in 1827, at the head of one of the public grammar-schools of Boston, in which posi- 
tion he continued over thirty years. From 1853 to 1858 he had a private school for young 
ladies. Mr. Parker has made several valuable contributions to the literature of his profes- 
sion. His school-books, which are numerous, have been creditable specimens of taste 
and scholarship, and have been eminently successful. The following are the chief: Pro- 
gressive Exercises in English Composition ; Aids to English Composition ; Progressive 
Exercises in English Grammar; Progressive Exercises in Rhetorical Reading, changed after- 
wards to The Rhetorical Reader; School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philos- 
ophy; Outlines of General History ; and, in connection with J. M. Watson, a complete series 
of Readers, called The National Readers, and often familiarly quoted as the Parker and Wat- 
son Readers. 



VII. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS. 

Archibald Alexander. 

Archibald Alexaitder, D. D., 1772-1851, holds a position altogether 
unique among American Presbyterians. He may not have been their 
greatest tlieologian, as he certainly was not their greatest writer ; yet, by 
the peculiarities both of his position and of his personal character, he 
wielded an influence altogether unprecedented in this branch of the Ameri- 
can Church. 

Dr. Alexander was bom near I/exington, Rockbridge County, Va. He was educated 
mainly by the Rev. William Graham, at Liberty Hall, afterwards Washington College, and 
now Washington-Lee University, at Lexington. After preaching a few years, he bocjime, in 
1796, President of Hampden Sidney College. In 1807 he became pastor of the Old Pine Street 
•Presbyterian church, Pliiladclphia; and, in 1812, when the Theological Seminary at Princeton 
was instituted, he was ajjpointed its first Professor, in which office he remained until his death. 

Dr. Alexander was a man of wonderful power as a preacher. In this respect he probably 
has never been excelled by any American divine. As the leading Professor in tlie Theologi- 
cal Seminary at Princeton for nearly forty years, and during the forn\ative period of that 
great religious denomination of which the Seminary w;m the acknowledge<l centre and 
representative, he did more probably than any other one man towards giving tone and shape 
to the Presbyterian Church in the United States. 

In addition to his work as a preacher and as a theological teacher, Dr. Alexander, after 

22* R 



258 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

his accession to the chair at Princeton, "was almost always busy with his pen, and his con- 
tributions to religious literature, most of them too of a popular cast, were numerous and 
varied. From 1829 to 1850 scarcely a number of the Princeton Review appeared without an 
article from his pen. No less than seventy-seven articles are enumerated as his, being 
enough to fill several large volumes. 

Of Dr. Alexander's separate publications, the following are specially worthy of mention : 
Endences of Christianity; The Canon of Scripture; Outlines of Moral Science; Practical 
Truths; Thoughts on Religious Experience; Advice to a Young Christian ; Counsels from 
the Aged to the Young ; Bible Dictionary ; History of the Patriarchs ; Annals of the Jewish 
Nation ; History of African Colonization ; History of the Log College. A volume of his 
Sermons also has been published. 

The chief characteristics of Dr. Alexander's style are simplicity and clearness. He had 
pondered the great themes upon which he wrote until their truths had become axiomatic 
to himself, and he unconsciously communicated something of the same character to his 
expression of them. He was remarkable also for his pure, idiomatic English. In his extem- 
pore addresses from the pulpit. Dr. Alexander was often highly imaginative. But little of 
this quality appears in any of his written discourses. 

Of all Dr. Alexander's writings, the ones which have made the deepest impression on the 
public mind are those on the Evidences, the Canon, and Religious Experience. His maturest 
work is the small volume on Moral Science. It is of this that the Westminster Review, no 
friendly witness, says: "It is a calm, clear stream of abstract reasoning, flowing from a 
thoughtful, well-instructed mind, without any parade of logic, but with an intuitive sim- 
plicity and directness which gives it an almost axiomatic force." 

Dr. Alexander was married to Janetta Waddel, daughter of the celebrated Dr. Waddel, the 
" Blind Preacher," described in such glowing terms by William Wirt in the British Spy. 

James Alexander. 

James Waddell Alexander, D. D., 1804-1859, eldest son of the pre- 
ceding, is widely known as an accomplished scholar and graceful writer, 
and as the author of a large number of works on religion and morals. 

Like his father and his brother Addison, James Alexander is associated in the public mind 
with the Princeton school of theology and letters, though most of his public career was 
spent elsewhere. He was born in Louisa County, Va., and graduated at Princeton, in the 
class of 1820. He was at diflferent times Professor in the College and in the Theological 
Seminary at Princeton, and Pastor in Charlotte Court-House, Va., in Trenton, N. J., and in 
New York city. 

Dr. Alexander's pen was seldom idle. Whether filling the pastoral oflSce or the Professor's 
chair, he always had some literary work in hand. He wrote constantly for the Princeton 
Review, his contributions to it numbering one hundred and one, being sufficient to till sev- 
eral large volumes. He wrote frequently also for the weekly and daily papers. He was the 
author of more than thirty juvenile works, written mostly for the American Suiidai'-School 
Union. Among these may be named Infant Library, Frank Harper, Carl the Young Emi- 
grant, Only Son, Scripture Guide. In connection with his brother Addison, he prepared for 
that society A Geography of the Bible. He wrote for them also The American Sunday- 
School and its Adjuncts. Some of his other publications are Thoughts on Family Worship, 
A Gift to the Afflicted, Consolation, and Plain Words, to a Young Communicant. He pre- 
pared also a Biography of his father, Dr. Archibald Alexander, a large 8vo, of 700 pages. 
Many of his writings were aimed particularly at the improvement of the condition of the 
workingmen. One of these, the American Mechanic and Workingman, is held in high 
estimation. Another deservedly popular book of somewhat the same cast is called Good, 
Better, Best. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 259 

Dr. Alexander was pre-eminently a scholarly man in his tastes and habits, being pro- 
foundly Tcrsed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and in three or four modern languages ; yet 
in his books for popular reading there is not the slightest hint of all this varied learning. 
His English is as pure and limpid as if he had never known any language but his own. 



Addison Alexander. 

Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., 1809-1860, is on the wliole the 
greatest of the remarkable family to which he belongs. Though born in 
Philadelphia, all his public life and writings are associated with Princeton, 
where for many years, as a Professor in the Theological Seminary, and still 
more through his writings, he wielded a prodigious influence over the world 
of opinion. 

Addison's special department was that of oriental literature. But he was 
great in almost every department of letters, and his contributions to English 
literature alone would entitle him to prominent rank, had he no other claim 
to greatness. 

lie was Adjunct Professor of Ancient Languages in Princeton College 
from 1830 to 1833, and a Professor in the Theological Seminar}' from 1838 
to the time of his death. 

He wrote several articles for Walsh's American Quarterly Review, and 
occasionally for other periodicals weekly and monthly. But most of his 
contributions to periodical literature were made to the Princeton Review, 
of which he was one of the main supports. With the single exception of 
Dr. Hodge, no one of the Princeton writers did so much as Addison Alex- 
ander to give this famous Review its world-wide celebrity. His articles, 
ninety-two in number, are not quite so numerous as those of his brother 
James, but they are of much greater value and importance. Among them 
are many which for brilliancy, power, and scope, may well be named with 
those of Macaulay, Jeffrey, and Sidney Smith. 

His power of sarcasm was unequalled ; and when he began writing for 
the Review, he seems to have thought that there were certain ecclesiastical 
and theological assumptions then afloat Avhich needed to be met with wit 
rather than argument, and whose authors deserved punishment rather than 
refutation. He castigated them accordingly, and with merciless severity. 
It is to be observed, however, that after the first few years, he rarely in- 
dulged in this vein. If the fact of his abstaining was due to a growing con- 
viction that a different line of controversy was better suited to the proprie- 
ties of theological discussion, the fact does credit to his conscientiousness. 
Few temptations are harder to resist than the temptation to use sarcasm 
and ridicule, when one has manifestly been gifted with these powerful 
weapons. The shafts which he sent were not only keenly pointed, but were 
hurled with a force which it was next to impossible to resist. Few oppo- 



260 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

nents, in or out of tlie church, could have stood up against tlie terrible 
weapons which seemed ever lying within reach of his fingers, and which 
yet, during the last twenty years of his life, he forebore entirely to employ. 

Of a man gifted with such a rare combination of great qualities, it is not 
easy to say which was the greatest. It was as a linguist, however, that he 
is generally considered as most distinguished. He was perfect master of 
seven languages, English, Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and 
Portuguese, all of which he knew not only philologically, but linguistically 
— reading, writing, and speaking them with ease and fluency. He knew 
profoundly, as a philologist, six others, Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldee, Persian, 
Greek, and Romaic, all of which he read and wrote fluently, without help, 
but did not speak, at least not familiarly. He was at home with eight 
others, Dutch, Danish, Flemish, Norwegian, Sanscrit, Ethiopic, Syriac, and 
Coptic, reading them without a Lexicon, but not writing or speaking them. 
He read with a Lexicon four others, Polish, Swedish, Malay, and Chinese. 
In all, twenty-five different languages. He was unquestionably the greatest 
oriental scholar that America has ever produced. 

As his greatest attainments were in the line of languages, so his most im- 
portant works are his Commentaries. These are the following : On Psalms, 
2 vols. ; Isaiah, 2 vols. ; Matthew, 1 vol. ; Mark, 1 vol. ; Acts, 2 vols. Next 
to his commentaries, are his Sermons, 2 vols., and New Testament Litera- 
ture, and Ecclesiastical History, 1 vol. 

His articles in the Princeton Review, however, give the best idea of the 
wonderful variety and depth of his attainments, as well as of the versatility 
of his genius. He was a signal proof that the study of languages, even 
when pushed to their most abstruse points, does not necessarily make one 
dry and dull. The United States probably never produced a scholar of 
more secluded and solitary habits. Yet his writings and his pulpit dis- 
courses were as simple and perspicuous as if he had been a mere English 
scholar. His sentences are as limpid in their flow, and glide as gently and 
smoothly into the reader's understanding, as those of the Joseph Addison 
after whom he was named. This wonderful simplicity, both of his thoughts 
and his language, combined often with a fervid eloquence, and always with 
profound and comprehensive views, made his pulpit performances exceed- 
ingly attractive. He had, too, a warm and vigorous imagination, to which 
in his sermons he sometimes gives the rein with startling effect. His style 
is always rhythmical, showing that he had a natural ear for verse, and he 
has given some specimens of poetry of a high order. 

Among his other traits was a strong love of fun, and he often amused 
himself, by way of relaxation from his profounder studies, by writing hu- 
morous pieces for the young children of his acquaintance. Sometimes he 
wrote to these little folks long letters in rhyme, but making them in the form 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 261 

of prose. At other times, he amused himself by describing some familiar 
event in language utterly unintelligible, although every word was taken 
from Webster's quarto dictionary. Another of his amusements was to write 
sonorous periods, faultless in diction and grammar, and apparently very 
profound, which however, on examination, were found to be entirely devoid 
of meaning. Indeed his love of poking good-natured fun at men and things 
was one of his most striking characteristics, and there is no doubt that he 
might have become famous as a humorist, had he not been drawn to higher 
things. An admirable Biography of him has been written by his nephew. 

THE DOOMED MAN. 
There is a time, we know not when, 

A point, we know not where, 
That marks the destiny of men 

To glory or despair. 

There is a line, by us unseen, 

That crosses every path; 
The hidden boundary between 

God's patience and his wrath. 

To pass that limit is to die, 
^ To die as if by stealth ; 

It does not quench the beaming eye. 
Or pale the glow of health. 

The conscience may be still at ease. 

The spirits light and gay ; 
That which is pleasing still may please, 

And care be thrust away. 

But on that forehead God has set 

Indelibly a murk, 
Unseen by man, for man as yet 

Is blind and in the dark. 

And yet the doomed man's path below 

Like Eden may have bloomed ; 
He did not, does not, will not know 

Or feel that he is doomed. 

He knows, he feels, that all is well, 

And every fear is calmed ; 
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell, 

Not only doomed, but damned. 

O where is this mysterious bourn, 

By which our path is crossed, 
Beyond which, God himself hath sworn, 

That ho who goes is lust? 

How far may we go on in sin? 

How long will God forbear? 
Where does hope eud, and where begin 

The confines of despair? 



262 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



An answer fi'om the skies is sent: 

"Ye that from God depart, 
While it is called to-day repent, 

And harden not your heart." 

BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. 

When fortune smiles and friends abound; 
When all my fondest hopes are crowned; 
When earth with her exhaustless store, 
Seems still intent to give thee more; 
When every wind and every tide 
Contribute to exalt thy pride; 
When all the elements conspire 
To feed thy covetous desire; 
When foes submit and envy stands 
Pale and abashed with folded hands ; 
While fame's unnumbered tongues prolong 
The swell of thy triumphal song ; 
When crowds admire and worlds applaud, 
" Be still, and know that I am God." 

When crowns are sported with, and thrones 

Are rocked to their foundation stones; 

When nations tremble and the earth 

Seems big with some portentous birth; 

When all the ties of social life 

Are severed by intestine strife; 

When human blood begins to drip 

From tyranny's accursed whip ; 

When peace and order find their graves 

In anarcliy's tempestuous waves; 

When every individual hand 

Is steeped in ciime, and every land 

Is full of violence and fraud ; 

"Be still, and know that I am God." 

When to the havoc man has made 
The elements afford their aid; 
When nature sickens, and disease 
Rides on the wing of every breeze; 
When the tornado in its flight 
Blows the alarm and calls to fight; 
When raging Fever leads the van 
In the fierce onslauglit upon man ; 
When livid Plague and pale Decline 
And bloated Dropsy form the line; 
While liideous Madness, shivering Fear, 
And grim Despair bring up the rear-, 
When these thy judgments are abroad; 
" Be still, and know that I am God." 

When messages of grace are sent. 
And Mercy calls thee to repent; 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 263 

When through a clond of hopes and fears 
Tlie Sun of Righteousness appears ; 
Why thy reluctant heart delays 
To leave its old accustomed ways; 
When pride excites a storm within, 
And pleads and fights for every sin; 
Be still, and let this tumult cease; 
Say to thy raging passions, " Peace ! " 
By love subdued, by judgment awed: 
"Be still, and know that I am God." 

MONOSYLLABICS. 

TTiink not that strength lies in the big round word. 

Or that the brief and pJuin must needs be weak. 
To whom can this seem true, that once has heard 

The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak, 
When want or woe or fear is in the throat, 

So that each word gasped out is like a shriek 
Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange wild note. 

Sung by some foe or fiend. Tliere is a strength 
Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine. 

Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length. 
Let but this force of thought and speech be mine. 

And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase, 
Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine - 

Light, but no heat — a flash, but not a blaze I 

DIAGNOSIS OF THE I AND THE NOT -I. 

Assuming as we safely may that all the reflex actings of the rational idea towards the 
pole of semi-unity are naturally complicated with a tissue of non-negative impressions, 
which can only be disintegrated by a process of spontaneous and intuitive abstraction, it 
inevitably follows, as a self-sustaining corollary, that the isolated and connatural conceptions, 
formed in this antespeculative stage of intellectual activity, must be reflected on the faculty 
itself, or, to speak with philosophical precision, on the I, when received concretely as the 
Not-I ; and in this reciprocal self-reproduction, carried on by the direct and transverse 
action of the Reason and the Understanding, modified of course by those extraneous and 
illusory perceptions, which can never be entirely excluded from the mutual relations of the 
pure intelligence on the one hand and the mixed operations of the will and the imagination 
on the other, may be detected, even by an infant-eye, the true solution of this great philo- 
sophical enigma, the one sole self-developing criterion of the elementary difi"ei-ence between 
the Not-I and the I. 

AN ADVENTURE. 

During a short outlope, which I took one rafty morning, in my olitory fell, to discover 
the ubication of a vespiary which annoyed ine, I saw a tall, wandy, losel lungis, in a leafy 
roquelani, thridding my gate, and knabbing a jaunock which I had just before inchested in 
my pantry. From his xanthe color I took him for a Zambo poller who had eonu'times 
shaved me. As it was gang week, I thought ho might be maundiug, and would willingly 
have given him a manchet ; but I was not such a hoddy-doddy as to sufi'er every patibulary 
querry to go digitigrade about my house and grounds. I mounted my horse, which I hud 
left to gise on a seavy eyot in the neighboring beck during my gra-ssation, and pursued 
him, but he seized a clevy and tried to blench the horse's chaulin and to base him back into 



264 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

the fell. Failing in this, he began to accoy me, and begged me to employ him as an abacist, 
pretending he had served as a lancepesade of infantry in Hayti. But I snebbed and gouged 
him, and not wishing the affair to be known to the neighboring clerisj-, who were already 
not a little roiled by some things I had said too overlashingly, I Jet the lown go shot-free, 
and went home rather latew-ard, feeling very hebete and curst; but after eating a chewet, 
and drinking a few mozers of perkin, I slumped into the quag and slept till morning. 



Samuel Davies Alexander, D. D., 1819 , fifth son of Dr. Archibald Alexander, was 

born at Princeton. He graduated at the College of New Jersey, in 1838, and studied theol- 
ogy in the Seminary at Princeton. After preaching in different places he became, in 1855, 
pastor of the Phillips Presbyterian Church, New York. Besides contributing to the Prince- 
ton Review, he published, in 187 "2, a volume, called Princeton College during the Eighteenth 
Century, and containing interesting sketches of its principal alumni. 



Samuel Miller. 

Samuel Mtller, D. D., 1769-1850, is associated in the minds of all 
Presbyterians with his friend and colleague, Dr. Archibald Alexander. 
Besides his great work, in giving shape and tone at its most critical period, 
to theological education in the Presbyterian Church of America, Dr. Miller 
contributed largely to the theological and religious literature of his church. 
His works are numerous and valuable, and are accepted as standards among 
most Presbyterians. 

Dr. Miller was born at Dover, Del., and was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, 
in 1789. He was pastor of the Brick Church, New York, from 1793 to 1813; and Professor 
of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government in the Theological Seminary at Princeton 
fi.-om 1813 until his death. 

Dr. Miller was for nearly forty years one of the great lights of Princeton and of the Pres- 
byterian Church in the United States. He and Dr. Archibald Alexander, taken respectively 
from the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and holding at the time conspicuous positions 
in those leading Presbyterian centres, were selected by the General Assembly as the original 
Professors and founders of the first Theological Seminary, which has exerted such a pro- 
digious influence on the Presbyterian Church. A more happy selection probably was never 
made in the founding of any great institution ; and the high tone in learning, literature, 
theology, and in every kind of earnest practical Christianity, which has marked the later 
development of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, may be traced in no small 
degree to the personal character of these two remarkable men. 

Dr. Miller was ever busy with his pen, and his publications are both numerous and valua- 
ble. The following are the chief: A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, containing a 
Sketch of the Revolutions and Improvements in Science. Arts, and Literature in that Period, 
published in 1S03, in 3 vols., Svo ; Letters on the Christian Ministry ; Presbyterianism the 
Truly Primitive and Apostolic Constitution of the Church of Christ; Letters on Church 
Government; Letters on Unitarianism ; On the Eternal Sonship of Christ ; Office of Ruling 
Elder in the Presbyterian Church ; Letters on Clerical Habits and Manners, etc. 

The work last named criticized with singular keenness some of the bad professional 
habits into which young ministers are apt to fall. The work was not uncalled for, and it 
had a marked and happ^ effect. 

An admirable Life of Dr. Miller, in 2 vols. Svo, has been published" by his son, Samuel 
MiUer, D. D. 




FROM 1830 TO 1850. 265 

"Dr. Miller came from the training of cit}' life, and from an eminently polished and lite- 
rary circle. Of fine person and courtly manners, he set a high value on all that makes 
society dignified and attractive. He was pre-eminently a man of system and method, gov- 
erning himself, even in the minutest particulars, by exact rules. His daily exercise was 
measured to the moment; and for half a century he wrote standing. lie was a gentleman 
of the old school, though as easy as he was noble in his bearing, — full of conversation, 
brilliaut in company, rich in anecdote, and universally admired. As a preacher, he was 
clear, without brilliancy, accustomed to laborious and critical preparation, relying little on 
the excitement of the occasion, but rapid with his pen, and gifted with a tenacious memory 
and a strong, sonorous voice, always instructive, always accurate." — James W. Alexander. 

President Carnahan. 

James Caenahan, D.D., 1775-1859, President of the College at Prince- 
ton from 1823 to 1854, although he published comparatively little, was so 
connected with the scholarship, theology, and literature of Princeton during 
the time of Dr. Miller, and the Alexanders, that some brief notice of him 
is required in this place. 

Dr. Carnahan was born near Carlisle. Pa., but spent his youth near Canonsburgh. lie 
graduated at Princeton in 1800, and was Tutor from ISOl to 1804. After preaching for some 
years in Whitesborough and Utica, N. Y., he removed to Georgetown, D. C, and opened 
a classical school, which he continued until his election to the Presidency in 1823. 

Dr. Carnahan published a few Baccalaureate Discourses, and two articles in the Princeton 
Review, all admirable of their kind, and it was hoped that a collection of his Sermons would 
appear after his death. But he left directions in his will that none of his manuscripts 
should be published. 

Dr. Carnahan's presidency was the longest in the history of the institution. When he 
came into oflBce, in 1823. the Faculty consisted of five members : a President, a Vice-Presi- 
dent, a Professor of Mathematics, and two Tutors. When he resigned, it was composed of fif- 
teen, — a President, a Vice-President, six Professors, two Assistant Professors, three Tutors, 
a Teacher of Modem Languages, and a Lecturer on Zoology. 

" He had the sagacity to surround himself at all times with a Faculty equal in ability and 
talent to any in the history of the institution. The names of Joseph Henry now of the 
Smithsonian Institution, of Stephen Alexander the eminent astronomer, of Dr. Torrey the 
botanist, of Professor Guyot, of Albert B. Dod, of J. W. Alexander, and Dr. Maclean, who 
succeeiled him in the presidency, will illustrate the character of the Princeton Faculty under 
Dr. Carnahan's administration. It was probablj' the period in which the College reached 
the greatest prosperity and widest influence that it had yet known, — great as had been the 
reputation and ability of the men who from its origin had been calletl successively to its 
headship. An excellent classical scholar, a sound teacher of philosophy and ethics, exem- 
plary and consistent in all his conduct, he gave his whole time and talent to the College ; 
and to his diligence, fidelity, and wisdom, much of this healthful growth of thirty years must 
be attributed. A writer in the Cyclopedia of American Literature well remarks: "He 
was less brilliant than his predecessors, but he brought to the serviceof education a balance 
and constancy of solid qualities, and an administrative talent in finance, which, joined to 
proverbial truth and uprightness, made his green old age peculiarly honorable. 

"His distinguishing attribute of character was practical wisdom. In sound sense, unerr- 
ing judgment, few men have e.\celled him. This made him a successful head in guiding 
the College, and governing the youth committed to his charge. He was so modest and un- 
pretending a man in all his feelings and habits, that the public were little aware of the 

28 



266 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

great work he accomplished at Princeton. The whole number of students graduated at 
Nassau Hall, from the beginning of the College to his resignation, in 1853, a period of one 
hundred and seven years, as stated by Dr. Tan Rensselaer from the College records, was 
three thousand three hundred and ninety ; and yet during his administration of thirty years 
more than half of these graduated. He thus conferred the first degree upon a lar"-er num- 
ber of alumni than all his predecessors had done. It is somewhat singular that a man with 
no great claims to popular eloquence, or preeminence as a preacher, should have done such 
a work as this, in a i)osition which for more than seventy years had been adorned with a 
succession of the greatest pulpit orators in our annals. Still Dr. Carnahan was not without 
his attraction in the pulpit, especially to cultivated minds. Though his manner was quiet 
he always inspired the respect and confidence which the consciousness of accurate knowl- 
edge gives a man. Tall in person, neither lean nor coi-pulent, and preaching in the black 
gown wliich was then the fashion at Princeton, he was always heard with attention and in- 
terest, and his appearance at Commencements and other public occasions was dignified and 
commanding." — Leroy J. Halsey. 

Albert B. Dod, D.D., 1805-1845, was bom in Mendham, N. J., and was educated at Prince- 
ton, both in the College and the Theological Seminary. He was appointed Professor of 
Mathematics in the College in 1830, and he continued to hold that position until the time 
of his death. He was a man of brilliant parts, and as a Professor made a profound impres- 
sion upon the generation of students who came within the reach of his influence, as well as 
upon the other Professors of the College and the Seminary. He published nothing, however, 
except eleven articles contributed to the Princeton Review, from 1835 to 1845. These were 
on the following subjects: Finney's Sermons; Finney's Lectures; Beecher's Yiews in The- 
ology ; Missionary Enterprise in the South Sea Islands; Phrenology; Transcendentalism, 
that part of the article reviewing Cousin, the other part being by James Alexander ; 
Analytical Geometry; Capital Punishment; Oxford Architecture; The Elder Question; 
Vestiges of Creation. " I have a strong conviction that he had in him rich stores of unde- 
veloped resources, which, had it pleased God to prolong his life, would have rendered him 
one of the most eminent and useful ministers of our Church." — Dr. CJiarles Hodge. 



Albert Barnes. 

Rev. Albert Barnes, 1798-1870, is chiefly known bj his Commen- 
taries on the Scriptures. These Commentaries have been the most popular 
probably that have ever been published. " Barnes's Notes " is a household 
word wherever, in Protestant Christendom, the English language is spoken. 
The number of volumes of the series issued before his death was over a million. 

Mr. Barnes (he steadily refused the D. D.) was a native of the State of New York and a 
graduate of Hamilton College. His theological education was received at Princeton, though 
in some respects his opinions differed from those of the Princeton school of theology. He 
began his ministry in Morristown, N. J., but was settled in the First Church in Philadel- 
phia in 1830, and continued to make that city his residence until his death in 1870. 

Among the earliest of Mr. Barnes's publications was a work on The Atonement, which 
led to much discussion, his views being sharply criticized by the Princeton Reviewers and 
others of the Old School. He also took early ground against slavery, in two publications, 
Inquiry into the Scrii)tural Views of Slavery, and The Church and Slavery. Among his 
miscellaneous works are Sermons on Revivals, Practical Sermons for Vacant Congregations^ 
Prayers for Family Worship, etc. His chief work, however, is his Notes on the Scriptures. 
He began by preparing Notes on the Gospels, for the use especially of Sunday-school 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 267 

teachers. After completing the Gospels, he wrote on, commenting upon one book after 
another, until he had gone over nearly the whole of the sacred volume. 

"Mr. Barnes's style is plain, simple, and direct ; and though his pages teem with the 
materiel of deep scholarship, yet he is, for the most part, eminently happy in making him- 
self intelligible and interesting to every class ; while the rich practical remarks, every now 
and then grafted upon the critical details, transfuse the devotional spirit of the writer into 
the bosom of his reader." — Amer. Biblical Repository. 

Robert J. Breckinridge. 

Egbert Jefferson Breckinridge, D. D,, LL. D., 1800-1871, was a 
Presbyterian divine of great eminence as a Avriter, and still more as a leader. 
His chief work is a system of theology, under the title of The Knowledge 
of God, Objectively and Subjectively Considered. He was one of the ac- 
knowledged leaders in the great disruption of the Presb}i;erian Church, 
which took place in 1837. 

Dr. Breckinridge wa-s born at Cabell's Dale, near Lexington, Ky. His father, Hon. John 
Breckinridge, a distinguished lawyer of that State, was at one time Attorney-General of the 
United States, \inder Jefferson. His mother was of the well-known Cabell fiunily of Vir- 
ginia, and was a woman of great strength of character. He went to Princeton College, then 
to Yale, and finally graduated at Union, in his twentieth year, and under the Presidency of 
Dr. Xott. He l>egan public life as a lawyer and a politician, and his talents were of that 
kind which could hardly have failed to lead to high political distinction. But after con- 
tinuing about eight years in the practice of the law, he became an earnest Christian, and 
thenceforward, to the end of life, he consecrated his great talents without reserve to the 
work of the Christian ministry. While preparing himself for this work, he spent some time 
at Princeton, in connection with the Theological Seminary. 

In 1832, Dr. Breckinridge became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, 
and he remained there several years, preaching with great acceptance. His life at Baltimore 
was signalized also by a large amount of controversial writing, directed against the Catholics 
of that city. The controversy was conducted chiefly through The Baltimore Literary and 
Religious Magazine, a periodical of marked abiUty, of which he was the editor and the chief 
contributor. 

In the discussions which led to the disruption of the Presbyterian Church in 1837, Dr. 
Breckinridge took an active and prominent part, being one of the acknowledged leaders of 
the Old School party. 

In 1S45, he became President of Jefferson College, in Western Pennsylvania, in which post 
he remained two years. He then became pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church iu Lex- 
ington, Ky., and after a time was made, by popular election, Superintendent of Public 
Schools in the State. 

In 1853, when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church established a Theological 
Seminary at Danville, Ky., Dr. Breckinridge was made Professor of Didactic and Polemic 
Theology in the new institution. He continued to fill this oflQco with great efliciency and 
acceptance for a number of years. 

A few years before his death, his health being impaired, ho resigned his Professorship, and 
withdrew almost entirely from public affairs, both secular and religious. 

His works, mostly theological, are the following: Internal Evidence of Christianity ; The 
Knowledge of God, objectively considered; The Knowledge of God, subjectively considered; 
Travels in France, Germany, etc, ; Memoranda of Foreign Travel ; and numerous pamplileta 
and articles on the current topics of the day — Slavery, Temperance, Presbyterianism, etc. 



268 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Breckinridge's chief characteristics as a writer are clearness and force, the result, evi- 
dently, of strong and assured convictions. He was a man of comprehensive views and gen- 
erous impulses, and was thoroughly in earnest in the great questions which he undertook to 
handle. He particularly excelled in debate, and he has had few equals on the floor of the 
General Assembly. His character was thus summed up by Dr. Thornwell : " What Dr. 
Breckinridge does, he does with his might ; when he loves, he loves with his whole soul; 
when he hates, he hates with equal cordiality ; and when he fights, he wants a clear field, 
and nothing to do but to fight." 

John Breckinridge, D. D., 1797-1841, brother of Robert, was considered the equal of the 
latter, and exercised while he lived a like commanding influence in the Church. But his 
labors were confined mostly to the pulpit and the platform. His writings were compara- 
tively few, and were by no means commensurate with his general standing and his acknowl- 
edged abilities. His chief publication was a volume containing the report of the controversy 
between him and Bishop Hughes. 

Samuel H. Cox. 

Samuel Hanson Cox, D. J)., LL. D., 1793 , is one of the notabili- 
ties of the Presbyterian Church, although his published works are not 
numerous. His principal volumes are Interviews Memorable and Useful, 
Theopneuston, and Quakerism not Christianity. 

Dr. Cox was born at Leesville, N. J., of Quaker parents, but at the age of twenty he con- 
nected himself with the Presbyterian Church. At the same time he abandoned the study 
of the law, which he had begun, and concluded to devote himself to the work of tlie Chris- 
tian ministry. He preached for thirteen years in New York city ; was then for a time Pro- 
fessor of Sacred Rhetoric in the Aiiburn Theological Seminary ; preached in Brooklyn for 
the next nineteen years, when he was obliged to desist from public speaking on account of 
loss of voice. He was then for some years President of Ingham University. 

Dr. Cox took a prominent part in the discussions which led to the division of the Presby- 
terian Church, throwing his influence in with the New School party. 

He has been industrious with his pen, though he has made comparatively few books. His 
communications with the public have been mostly through the religious weekly papers, or 
by pamphlets. He was one of the originators of the New York Observer, and has been a 
frequent contributor to its columns. One of his pamphlets, On Regeneration, created con- 
siderable noise. It was criticized with much severity by Dr. Hodge in the Princeton 
Review. 

Dr. Cox published a book, Quakerism not Christianity, or Reasons for renouncing the 
Doctrines of Friends, in which he gives some account of his own early experience. Another 
of his volumes, called Theopneuston, or Select Scriptures Considered, is a work intended for 
the use of Bible Classes and Sunday-School Teachers. One of his latest works is Interviews 
Memorable and Useful, from Diary and Memory Reproduced. 

Dr. Cox has always been something of a humorist, and on receiving in 1823 the degree of 
D. D., he addressed a letter to the New York Observer, declining the honor, and ridiculing 
the whole system, — calling the D. D.'s " semi-lunar fardels." After a time, however, be sub- 
mitted to the infliction, and even accepted the three additional letters that grace his hon- 
ored name. 

One of the peculiarities of Dr. Cox's style, especially in his pulpit performances, is his 
fondness for " dictionary words." No living preacher probably uses, in his common speech, 
BO large a percentage of words of Latin origin. He has been known, even in his prayers, to 
quote whole sentences from the Latin. With all his peculiarities, however, as a writer and 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 269 

a speaker, he has ever been held to be a man of great and original force, and he has filled a 
large space in the public mind. 

Thomas II. Skixner, D.D., 1791-1871, a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, was a native 
of North Carolina, and a graduate of Princeton, in the class of 1809. He was pa.stor of the 
Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, from 181G to 18o2 ; Profossor of Sacred 
Rhetoric in Andover Theological Seminary, from 1832 to 1835 ; pastor of the Mercer Street 
Presbyterian Church, New York, from 1S35 to 1848; and Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, etc., 
in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, from 1848 until his death. Dr. Skinner had 
great celebrity as a preacher. His writings also are marked with ability. The most im- 
portant of tliem are in the line of his Professorship : Aids to Preaching and Hearing ; Tinet'a 
Pastoral Theology, translated and edited; Vinet's Homiletics, translated, with notes; Dis- 
cussions in Theology ; Thoughts on Evangelizing the World, etc. 

George Duffield, D. D., 1799-1870, was a native of Pennsylvania, and a minister of high 
standing in the Presbyterian Church. He belonged during the time of the division to the 
New School party. Besides contributing to the religious papers and magazines, he has pub- 
lished: Dissertations on the Prophecies; Millennium Defended; Spiritual Life; Obligation 
and Perpetuity of the Christian Sabbath; Claims of Episcopal Bishops Examined, etc. 

Joel Parker, D. D., 1799 , a Presbyterian clergyman of great eminence, was bom at 

Bethel, Yt., and graduated at Hamilton College, New York, in the class of 1824. lie com- 
menced preaching in 1826, and has been pastor in Rochester, New Orleans, New York, Phil- 
adelphia, and Newark, N. J., besides being for two or three years Professor in the Union 
Theological Seminary, in New York city. He is settled at present, 1872, in New York. Dr. 
Parker has published several volumes of a popular character : Lectures on Universalism ; 
Morals for a Young Student ; Invitation to True Happiness ; Courtship and Marriage ; Rea- 
sonings of a Pastor with the Young of his Flock, etc. 

Dr. Thornwell. 

James H. Thornwell, D. D., LL. D., 1811-1862, has written largely 
on the subject of Systematic Theology, and he is accounted by general con- 
sent one of the ablest of recent Presbyterian theologians. His Theological 
Works fill six large volumes. 

Dr. Thornwell was born in Marlborough District, S. C, and graduated in South Carolina 
College, in 1819, with the highest honors of his class. He studied afterwards at Harvard, 
and in Europe. At the age of twenty-five he was elected Professor of Logic and Belles-Let- 
tres in South Carolina College. He became subsequently President of the College, and 
finally Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, with intervals of 
pastoral labor in the Presbyterian church at Columbia, and the State Street Church in 
Charleston. 

Dr. Thornwell was a man of varied learning and persuasive eloquence, and one of the 
ablest theologians of the Presbyterian Church. Whenever he was a delegate to the General 
Assembly, his opinions carried great weight in that body. By his lectures as a theological 
Professor, and by his publications, chiefly in the Southern Presbyterian Review, he has left 
a deep and abiding impress of his character and opinions. 

A collected edition of his Works has been prepared by his associate, John B. Adger, D. D., 
in 6 vols., large 8vo. Vol. I. is Theological, relating to God and the moral government of the 
world ; Vol. II. is Theological and Ethical, relating to God's moral government as modified 
by the covenant of grace; Vol. III. is Theological and Controversial, discussing the Canon 
and the Authenticity of the Scriptures, and various points at issue between Protestants and 
Catholics; Vol. IV. is Ecclesiological ; Vols. V. and VI. are Miscellaneous. 
23* 



270 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

George Bush, D. D., 1796-1860, Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature in the TTni- 
versity of New York, was a man of rare learning and talents. He was a graduate of Dart- 
mouth College, and studied theology at Princeton. His principal works are: A Hebrew 
Grammar; Commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Joshua, Judges, and Numbers, 8 
vols.; A Commentary on the Psalms; A Life of Mohammed (written for Harper's Family 
Library) ; A Treatise on the Millennium ; The Doctrine of the Resurrection, etc. In the 
latter part of his life, Dr. Bush became a Swedenborgian. 

Dr. Junkin. 

George Junehn, D. D., 1790-1868, attained much note as a champion 
of the Old School, in the controversy which rent the Presbyterian Church 
in 1837. He was the author of several theological works, and was promi- 
nent in the cause of education. 

Dr. Junkin was born near Kingston, Cumberland County, Pa. He graduated at Jefferson 
College in 1813, and studied theology under Dr. John Mason, in New York city. After sev- 
eral years of pastoral labor, he became Principal of the Manual Labor Academy, in German- 
town, Pa., and then President of Lafayette College, at Easton, at its organization in 1832. 
He was President of Miami University, Ohio, from 1841 to 1844, and then again of Lafay- 
ette from 1844 to 1848. From 1848 to 1861 he was President of Washington College, Lex- 
ington, Va., but retired on the breaking out of the war. 

His remaining years were spent in Philadelphia, without oflBcial charge. During this 
period several of his works were published. 

Dr. Juukin's publications are the following: The Vindication, containing a history of the 
trial of the Rev. Albert Barnes, 1836; A Treatise on Justification, 1839; The Little Stone 
and the Great Image, lectures on the Projihecies of Daniel, 1844 ; The Great Apostacy, a 
lecture on the Catholic Controversy, 1853 ; Political Fallacies, 1862; A Treatise on Sanc- 
tification, 1864 ; The Tabernacle, or the Gospel according to Moses, 1865 ; Sabbatismos ; 
and a Commentary on Hebrews. 

John William Yeomans, D. D., 1800-1863, was born in Hinsdale, Mass., and graduated at 
Williams College, in 1826. He studied theology at Andover, and preached successively at 
North Adams and Pittsfield, in Mass., and at Trenton, N. J. In 1841 he became President 
of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa.; and from 1844 to his death, in 186-3, he was pastor 
of the Presbyterian church in Danville, Pa. Dr. Yeomans published no books, but was the 
author of twenty articles in the Princeton Review. 

Edward Dorr Yeomans, D. D., 1829-1868, son of the preceding, was bom in North Adams, 
Berkshire County, Mass., and was educated mostly by his father. He passed through the 
Junior year of Lafayette College before he was fifteen. His academic degrees of A. M. and 
D.D., were both honorary, and both received from Princeton. He preached in the Warrior 
Run Church, Pa., from 1854 .to 1858; in the Fourth Church of Trenton, N. J., from 1858 to 
1863; in St. Peters Church, Rochester, N. Y., from 1863 to 1867; and in Orange, N. J., from 
1867 to tbe time of his death in 1868. 

Dr. Yeomans, besides more than usual proficiency in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was an 
accomplished student of the German, and possessed rare skill as a translator. His chief 
literary productiveness was in this line. His translations from the German had all the 
idiomatic character of original compositions. The works which he translated were Schaflf 'a 
History of the Apostolic Church, Schaflf's History of the Christian Church, Schaff's Lectures 
on America. He was engaged, at the time of his death, in translating the large volume of 
Lange's Commentary on John. 




FROM 1830 TO 1850. 271 

Jacob Jasewat, D. D., 1774-1S5S, was a native of New York city, and a graduate of Col- 
umbia College, lie w;ls a prumineiit minister in the Presbyterian Church, and held several 
imporL-mt positions. lie ministered also for several years in the lleformed Dutch Church. 
The clo.sing years of his life were spent in retirement at New Ilrunswiek, N.J. His publi- 
cations were Exposition of Acts, Romans, and Hebrews; Natural Evidences of the Holy 
Bible; The AbnUianiic Covenant; The Inability of Sinners; Unlawful Marriage; The 
Atonement; Mode of Baptism; Communicants' Manual, etc. 

Jakes Wood, D.D., 1799-1867, wa-s bom at Greenfield, N. Y., and graduated at Union Col- 
lege, Schenectady, in the class of 1S22. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Am- 
sterdam, N. Y., from 1S2G to 1833; Professor of Biblical Literature in the Theological Serai- 
nary at New Albany, Ind., from 1833 to 1855; President of Hanover College, Ind., from 1859 
to 1866; President of A^aa Rensselaer Institute, llightstown, N. J., from 1866 to his death, 
18G7. Dr. Wood published, Old and New Theology; A Treatise on Baptism; Call to the 
Sacred OflSce; The Best Lesson and Best Time; Grave and Glory. 



Dr. Sprague. 

Wllliam B. Sprague, D. D., 1795 , has been one of the most pn> 

lific writers in the Presbyterian Church. His Annals of the American 
Pulpit especially is a monument of industry and research. 

Dr. Sprague was born at Andover, Conn., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1815. lie 
studied theology at Princeton. He was pastor in West Springfield, Mass., ten years, from 
1819 to 1829 ; and of the Second Presbyterian Church in Albany forty years, from lb2y to 
1869. 

Besides a number of contributions to the Princeton Review, he has published by request 
no less than 160 Addresses and Sermons on spiritual occasions. His published volumes are 
Letters on Practical Subjects to a Daughter; Letters from Europe; Visits to European 
Celebrities; Lectures on Revivals ; Hints to Regulate the Intercourse of Christians ; Lec- 
tures Illustrating tlie Contnist between True Christianity and various other systems; Life 
of Edward Dorr Grifiiu ; Letters to Young Men ; Words to a Young Man's Conscience ; Aids 
to Early Religion ; Lectures to Young People; and lastly. Annals of the American Pulpit, 
10 vols., large 8vo. This last and greatest work was begun by him at the ago of fifty-two, 
when most men begin to think of relief from literary labor, 

"With industry appalling to weaker men, and perseverance that never fainted, he ad- 
dressed himself to the task of rescuing from oblivion the personal history of every individual 
minister, of every Christian denomination, from the first settlement of this country, whose 
usefulness had made him distinguished in the church to which he belonged. The informa- 
tion to be wrought into history was mainly to be found bypersonsU inquiry and correspond- 
ence. He wrote and received tens of thousands of letters, and all the letters he received 
are carefully preserved in volumes. Through seventeen years of steady toil he pursue<l this 
work, at the same time writing fresh sermons every week, fulfilling every pastcmil duty, visit- 
ing his large congregation systematically and more frequently than is common, kt-epinir ojhmi 
house with a hospitality that had no limit, and never denying himself to calls that U'camo 
almost incessant upon a man so distinguished and so generous, .\dmonished by the .-ulvanco 
of years that he could not expect to have vigor for efficient pulpit service much longer, ho 
decided to resign his pastoral charge. This ho did towards the close of the year 18t;'.», and 
he has now removed to Flushing, N. Y., near the city, where ho is passing in dignified 
retirement the evening of his useful life. As a prciicher, he is earnent, persiut^iive, affection- 
ate, and instructive; as a writer, vigorous, fluent, and elegant; as a man, genial, gentle, 



272 AMEEICAN^ LITERATURE. 

accomplished, loTing and beloved ; shrinking from public service, yet constantlj called into 
it ; timid as a child, and resolute as a lion, he has the heart of a woman and the head of a 
man. His biography will form a fitting conclusion to his own annals of American divines ; 
for among them all there never lived a purer or a better man than the subject of this 
sketch." — Princeton Beview, Index Vol. 

Nicholas Murray, D.D., 1802-1861, was a native of Ireland. He emigrated to America ia. 
1815 ; was graduated at Williams College in 1826 ; studied theology at Princeton ; was settled 
at Wilkesbarre, Pa., in 1829 ; and went thence in 1833 to Elizabeth, N. J., where he remained 
until his death. He was ever busy with his pen, and wrote several books, besides an almost 
weekly contribution for many years to the New York Observer. He took an active part in 
the controversy with the Catholics,and his best known works are those written on this sub- 
ject. He wrote usually nnder the signature of Kirwan. His chief publications are Letters 
to Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Hughes ; The Decline of Popery and its Cause ; Romanism 
at Home, Letters addressed to Chief-Justice Taney; Men and Things, as I saw them in 
Europe ; Piuish and other Pencillings ; The Happy Home ; Notes, Historical and Biographi- 
cal, respecting Elizabethtown. The work first named. Letters by Kirwan to Bishop Hughes, 
had a very large circulation, and was translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and 
Tamul. Dr. Murray had a sparkling Irish wit, and his writings, even those on theological 
controversy, are always brimming with life. 



Dr. Spring. 

Gabdiner Spring, D. D., LL. D., 1785 , has been for more than 

sixty years a standard-bearer of Presbyterianism in the city of New York. 
Both by his ministry and his writings he has wielded a great influence in 
the religious denomination to which he belongs. 

Dr. Spring was bom at Newburyport, Mass., and was graduated at Tale, in the class of 
1805. After leaving college, he first studied law and was admitted to the bar, but afterwards 
entered the Andover Theological Seminary and studied for the ministry. He became pastor 
of the Brick Church, Presbyterian, iu New York city, in 1810, and has continued in that 
relation ever since. 

Dr. Spring's publications, mostly on subjects of practical religion, have been numerous. 
The following are the chief: Attractions of the Cross ; Obligation of the World to the Bible ; 
The Mercy Seat; First Things; The Glory of Christ; Sermons for the People; The Power 
of the Pulpit; The Bible not of Man ; The Church in the Wilderness ; The Rule of Faith ; 
Fragments from the Study of a Pastor; Hints to Parents on Early Religious Education, etc. 

Samuel G. Winchester, D. D., 1805-1841, was born at Rock Run, Harford County, Md. He 
first studied law, but being converted during a revival in Baltimore, under the ministry of 
Dr. William Nevins, he changed his plans, and in 1827 entered the Theological Seminary at 
Princeton. In 1830, he was settled in the Sixth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, where 
he labored for seven years. In 1837, he took charge of the Presbyterian church in Natchez, 
Miss. He was an accomplished speaker, and for the short time that he was in the ministry 
had risen to a high place in the public estimation. He published Christian Counsel to the 
Sick ; Importance of Family Religion ; The Theatre ; The Doctrine of Appeals and Com- 
plaints, etc. 

Jared B. Waterbtjrt, D.D., 1799 , was born in the city of New York, and graduated 

at Yule, in the class of 1S22. He studied theology at Princeton. Dr. Waterbury is the author 
of a large number of volumes on practical religion which have been well received: Advice 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 273 

to a Young Christian; Considerations for Young Men ; The Happy Christian ; The Sceptic 
Refuted ; True and False Courage ; Bearing the Cross ; Taking up the Cross ; The Voyage of 
Life ; The Child of the Covenant; Children Led to the Saviour, etc. 

Ltmax Colemajt, D.D., 1796 , is a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Yale. lie 

has been engaged chiefly in the work of education at various preparatory schools and col- 
leges, and is at present a Professor in Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. His publications are: 
Antiquities of the Christian Church, translated from the German; The Apostolical and 
Primitive Church; Historical Geography of the Bible; Historical Text Book and Atlaa of 
Biblical Geography. 

James M. Olmstead, D.D., 1794-1870, a native of Saratoga County, N. Y., was graduated at 
Union, in the class of 1819, and studied theology at Princeton. He published Thoughts and 
Counsels for the Impenitent; Our First Mother; Noah and his Times. 

Joel Jones. 

Joel Jones, LL.D., 1795-1860, was an eminent jurist of Philadelphia, 
but studied and wrote much on theological subjects. His chief work was a 
large octavo volume, called Jesus and the Coming Glory, in which he ad- 
vocated the doctrines of the Second Adventists. 

Judge Jones was a native of Coventry, Conn., and a graduate of Yale, where he gained dis- 
tinction as a student. Having studied law at Litchfield and New Haven, he settled at Easton, 
Pa., where he practised for many years. He was appointed Judge in Philadelphia in 1835, 
and continued upon the bench until 1848, when he was elected President of Girard College. 
On resigning that position two years after, he was elected Mayor of the city, and at the ex- 
piration of his term returned to the practice of his profession. 

Few judges in the United States have had such eminence as scholars. He was not only 
learned in the law, in the highest sense of the word, but was a man of mark in general 
scholarship. He read and spoke familiarly most of the languages of modern Europe ; he 
knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew almost as if they were living languages. He took an active 
interest in theological speculations and inquiries, and there were few professed theologians 
better informed than he in regard to the current of opinion in biblical exegesis and hermcneu- 
tics. He was an earnest advocate of a literal interpretation of those scriptures which pre- 
dict the second advent of Christ. 

His law publications consist of his Reports on a Commission to revise the Civil Code of 
Pennsylvania, and A Manual of Pennsylvania Land Law. He contributed largely to religious 
periodicals, — the Theological and Literary Journal, the Literary and Religious Magazine 
of Baltimore, the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century, the Jewish Chronicle, and the Princeton 
Review. His largest separate publication was a large octavo, Notes on Scripture, expound- 
ing especially those passages in which our Lord speaks of his second coming. The work 
has since been printed with the title, Jesus and the Coming Glory. 

Joseph Huntington Jones, D. D., 1797-1868, a brother of Joel Jones, was a native of Cov- 
entry, Conn., and a graduate of Harvard. He studied theology at Princeton, and entered 
the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. He was settled successively at Woodbury and 
New Brunswick, N. J., and in the Sixth Pre.sbyterian Church, Philadelphia, in each of 
which pastorates he remained a considerable time and accomplished a largo work. The last 
few years of his life were spent as Secretary of the Committee for Disabled Ministers. He 
wrote an interesting work, The Effects of Physical Causes on Christian Experience; also, 
A Memoir of Dr. Ashbel Green, besides some smaller publications. 

s 



274 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Charles Colcock Jones, D.D., , was an eminent Presbyterian clergyman, a native 

of Georgia, and educated at the Theological Seminary at Princeton. After preaching with 
much distinction, and holding for a time the position of Secretary of the Board of Education, 
he devoted himself to the work of evangelizing the negro population of his native State. He 
wrote The Religious Instruction of Negroes in the United States ; Suggestions on the Reli- 
gious Instruction of Negroes in the Southern States ; The Glory of Woman is the Feai of 
the Lord, etc. 

ICHABOD S. Spencer, D.D., 1798-1854, long known as a leading Presbyterian pastor in 
Brooklyn, L. I., was born at Rupert, Vt., and graduated at Union College, in the class of 
1822. He published many sermons, but is chiefly known by his Pastor's Sketches, wliich 
passed through many editions. Besides this, there have been published Discourses on Sac- 
ramental Questions; Evidences of Divine Revelation; and a volume of Sermons, with a 
Memoir of his Life. 

John M. Krebs, D.D., 1804-1867, was a native of Hagerstown, Md. He studied theology 
at Princeton, and was for a long time one of the leading Presbyterian pastoi-s in the city of 
New York. His writings are mostly on practical religion. The following are the chief: 
The Purpose and Success of the Gospel; Righteousness and National Prosperity; The 
Providence of God in the Calamities of Man; The Leader Fallen; Merciful Rebukes; Man 
not Made in Vain ; Reciprocal Relation of Physician and Clergyman, etc. 

Richard W. Dickinson, D.D., 1804 , is a native of New York. He graduated at Yale, 

and studied theology at Princeton. He has preached in New York and in several other 
places, and always with great acceptance, but after repeated trials, has been obliged to 
desist, on account of the failure of his health. Besides writing very largely for the Presby- 
terian, and other religious periodicals, weekly and quarterly, he has published the following 
separate works : Religious Teaching by Example, a Scene from Sacred History ; The Life 
and Times of John Howard; Responses from the Sacred Oracles; A Sketch of Walter 
Lowrie ; The Resurrection of Christ, Historically and Logically Viewed. 

Lewis Warner Green, D.D., 1806-1803, was a distinguished preacher of the Presbyterian 
Church. After completing his theological studies at Princeton, Dr. Green entered actively 
into the work of the ministry, but was soon called away from pastoral duties to engage in 
the work of higher education, in which nearly all the remaining years of his life were spent. 
He was Professor in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Alleghany, and President 
successively of Hampden Sidney College, Va., and of Transylvania University, and Centre 
College, Ky. He was a man of great power in the pulpit, and was remarkable for his skill 
in exercising a controlling and moulding influence over young men. A volume containing 
his Life, by Dr. Leroy J. Ualsey, and a selection from his Sermons, has been published. 

HoLLis Read, 1802 , favorably known as a Presbyterian foreign missionary, was born 

at Newfane, Vt. He was a missionary in India from 1830 to 1835. On his return, he was 
settled as a pastor in New Jersey. He published The Indian Brahmin ; India and its People ; 
God in History ; Palace of the Great King ; Commerce and Christianity, etc. 

Rev. John G. Wilson, 1809 -, was born at New Leeds, Cecil County, Md. He has pub- 
lished Discourses on Prophecy; Vindication of tlie Scheme of Redemption; The Sab!>atli 
and its Law ; The Gospel of the Epiphany ; Writings in Prose and Verse ; Lyre of My Youth ; 
God All in All, a prize poem. 

Rev. John Leighton Wilson, D.D., 1809 , was born in Sumter District, S. C, and 

graduated at Union College, Schenectady, in the class of 1829. He studied theology at 



II, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 275 

Columbia, S. C. lie went as a missionary to Africa in 18IJ3, and labored for twenty years on 
that continent, eight at Cape Palma.<, and twelve at Gaboon. IIo reduced to writing 
the Grebo language spoken at Cape Palmas, and the Mpongwe spoken at Gaboon, published 
grammars of both, and translated into both portions of the Scriptures. He has published 
Western Africa, its history, condition, and prospects. Some other works on the same sub- 
ject, including articles in the Princeton Review and the Southern Presbyterian Quarterly. 

Nathaniel Scudder Prime, D. D.. 17S5-1S56, a son of B. Y. Prime, wjis born at Hunting- 
ton, Long Island, and graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1804. lie was a clergyman of 
the Presbyterian Church, and preached in various places, but was more known as a classical 
teacher. He was Principal of literary institutions at Sing Sing, Newbnrgh, and Cambridge, 
N.Y. Besides sundry contributions to literature, he published A Familiar Illustration of 
Christian Baptism, and A History of Long Island. 

Lyman Beecher. 

LYMAJir Beechee,, D. D., 1775-1863, during his long public career, ex- 
erted a commanding influence in the church and in society. He was 
equally celebrated as a preacher and as a writer. His writings are not 
numerous, as compared with those of his still more illustrious descendants, 
but are marked by great boldness, vigor, and clearness, both of thought 
and expression, with occasional outbursts of passionate elot^uence. 

Dr. Beecher was born in New Haven, and graduated under Dr. Dwight. He first rose to 
eminence as a preacher in Litchfield, Conn., but attained his greatest celebritj' in Boston, 
where he embarked zealously in the Unitarian controversy, in opposition to the views of 
Dr. Channing. He lield a conspicuous position also for many years in Cincinnati, as the 
President of Lane Theological Seminary. 

As a thinker, Dr. Beecher was bold to the point of audacity, and it was this feature of his 
character probably, more than any positive errors, that made him a subject of anxiety to 
the more conservative chiss of theologians. He was one of the earliest and most eloquent 
advocates of the temperance movement. His chief publications are the following: Sermona 
on Temperance ; Views in Theology ; Scepticism; Political Atheism ; Plea for the West. 

James B. Walker, D. D., 1805 , a theological writer of considerable note, was born in 

Philadelphia. He went out West when a young man and began life as a printer; afterwards 
read law ; next spent four years in study in Western Reserve College, Ohio ; passed some 
years in successful mercantile business; and then entered the ministry. Publications: The 
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation ; God Revealed in Nature and in Christ ; Philosophy of 
Scepticism and Ultraism; Philosophy of the Divine Operation in the Redemption of Man; 
The Living Questions of the Age. 

Rev. Walter M. Lowrie, 1819-1847, son of Hon. Walter Lowrie, was a native of Butler, 
Pa., and a graduate of Jefferson College. He studied theology at Princeton, and went to 
China as a missionary. While going from one station to another, lie w;uj cai)turcd at sea 
and murdered by Chinese pirates. He was the author of Letters to Sunday-School Children ; 
The Land of Simeon ; and Sermons. 

William M. Thomson, D. D., , for twenty-fivo years an American missionary in 

Palestine, has published two works of great excellence and value: The Land and The Book, 
or Biblical illustrations drawn from the manners and customs, the scenes and scenery, of the 
Holy Land; The Land of Promise, or Travels in Modern Palestine, illustrative of Biblical 
history, names, and customs. 



276 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Rev. Liecester Ambrose Sawyer, , a Presbyterian minister, is a native of Pinck- 

ney, N. Y. He was graduated at Hamilton College, in the class of 1828 ; became President 
of Central College, Ohio; and in 185-1: was settled over the Congregational church in West- 
moreland, N. J. He has published elements of Biblical Interpretation ; Mental Philosophy ; 
Moral Philosophy ; Catechism of Christian Morals ; Reconstruction of Biblical Theories, or 
Biblical Science Improved ; Organic Christianity. He has actempted also A New Transla- 
tion of the Scriptures. 

Rev. F. De W. Ward, 1812 , was bom at Bergen, N. T., and graduated at Union College. 

He stiidied theology at Princeton, and spent ten years in India as a foreign missionary. He 
wrote India and the Hindoos; Christian Gift, or Pastoral Letters upon Character; Summer 
Vacation Abroad, etc. 

FIenrt Philip Tappan, D. D., LL. D., 1806 , was born at Rhinebeck, N. T., and grad- 
uated at Union College, in the class of 1825. He was appointed Professor of Moral and In- 
tellectual Philosophy in the University of the city of New York in 1S32, and in 1852 became 
Chancellor of the University of Michigan, in both of which posts he greatly distinguished 
himself. 

Prof. Tappan has published the following important works : Review of Edwards on the 
Freedom of the Will ; The Doctrine of the Freedom of the Will determined by an Appeal 
to Consciousness ; The- Doctrine of the Freedom of the Will applied to Moral Agency and 
Responsibility ; Elements of Logic ; A Treatise on University Education ; A Step from the 
New World to the New. 



Moses Stuart. 

Moses Stuart, 1780-1852, was one of the most eminent biblical scholars 
that America has produced, and was the first that acquired special distinc- 
tion in this department. His publications are both numerous and varied, 
beginning aa far back as 1813, and continuing, in an almost uninterrupted 
series, down to 1852. Those by which he is most known are his Hebrew 
Grammar, and his Commentaries on the Epistles to the Romans and the 
Hebrews 

By his long life and his continued activity to the last years of his Hfe, Prof. Stuart con- 
nected himself with two distinct generatious. He was prominent as a tower of strength 
in Andover, in 1820, when his associate, Leonard AVoods, had his celebrated controversy with 
the Unitarians of Boston. He broke a lance with Daniel Webster on the Slavery Question 
in 1850, and published the last of his series of commentaries in 1852. It has been difficult, 
therefore, to decide, in regard both to him and Dr. Woods, in which chapter to place them. 
But, on the whole. Dr. Woods's chief activity seems to have been in the Unitarian contro- 
versy, which puts him in the preceding chapter, and the preponderance of Prof. Stuart's 
work comes after 1830. 

Prof Stuart was born at Hilton, Conn., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1799. He 
studied law, then was Tutor in Yale, then preached in New Haven, and in 1810 was made 
Professor of Sacred Literature in Andover. This position he held until 1848, when he 
resigned "in consequence of the infirmities of advancing ago." 

Prof Stuart's principal publications are the following: Commentaries on Hebrews, Ro- 
mans, The Apocalypse, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs ; A Hebrew Grammar ; A Hebrew Chres- 
tomathy ; Elements of Interpretation, a translation from Ernesti ; Hints on the Interpre- 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 277 

tation of Prophecy ; Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon ; Grammar 
of the New Testament Dialect; Rules for Greek Accents and Quantity; Exegetical Essays 
on Certain Words relating to Future Punishment ; Philological Views of the Modern Doc- 
trines of Geology ; Cicero on the Immortality of the Soul, criticized with great severity hy 
Prof. Kingsley of Tale ; Reply to Strictures of the Princeton Review on the American Edu- 
cation Society ; Letters to Dr. Channing, on the Unitarian Controversy ; Letters to Dr. Chan- 
ning, on Religious Liberty; The Mode of Christian Baptism ; Discourses on the Atonement; 
Conscience and the Constitution. He had a sharp controversy also with Dr. Maclean of 
Princeton on the " Wine Question," and was the author of numerous pamphlets. 
Of all the long list of his publications, the most important by far are his Commentaries. 

Isaac W. Stuart, 1809-1861, a son of Prof. Moses Stuart of Andover, was born in New 
Haven, Conn., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1828. He became Professor of Greek 
and Roman Literature in the College of South Carolina, at Columbia. He published Hart- 
ford in the Olden Time ; A Life of Capt. Nathan Hale ; A Life of Jonathan Trumbull, the 
Revolutionary Governor of Connecticut, etc. 

Edward Robinson. 

Edward Kobinson, D.D., LL. D., 1794-1863, was another eminent 
biblical scholar connected for a time with Andover Theological Seminary. 
Of his many works, the greatest, and those most likely to be enduring, are 
his Biblical Kesearches in the Holy Land, and his Lexicon of the New 
Testament. 

Professor Robinson was bom in Southington, Conn., and was graduated at Hamilton College, 
N. Y., with the highest honors of his class, in 1816. He was for two years a Tutor in the col- 
lege, and was married to President Kirkland's sister, but was left a widower in less than a 
year. In 1821 he went to Andover, Mass., for the purpose of carrying a work through the 
press. It ended in his turning his attention to the study of Hebrew, and becoming an 
assistant in that department to Professor Stuart. 

In 1826 Professor Robinson went abroad to pursue his biblical studies, and he continued 
the pursuit four years, chiefly at Halle and Berlin. In Ilalle he married a daughter of Pro- 
fessor Ludwig H. Von Jakob. On his return he was made Professor Extraordinary of Sacred 
Literature in Andover Theological Seminary, and he continued in that post from 1830 to 
1833. The next four years, from 1833 to 1837, were spent in Boston. During the remainder 
of his life, from 1837 to 1863, he was Professor of Biblical Literature in Union Theological 
Seminary, New York. 

In 183^, and again in 1852, in conjunction with the missionary Eli Smith, he made the 
exploration of Palestine and Jerusalem, which created such an era in biblical research. Dr. 
Robinson, by his previous biblical studies, knew just what points in the topography of the 
Holy Land needed elucidation. Eli Smith, by his long residence in the country as a mis- 
sionary at Beirut, had become thoroughly familiar with the ways of the people, and spoke 
the language of the country with the freedom of a native. Dismissing, therefore, all the old 
legends which had served to bewilder so many generations of students, they traversed the 
country with the open Bible in the original language in one hand, and with a measuring-lino 
and barometer in the other, and by actual measurement and observation were able to 
identify with entire certainty nearly two hundred places named in the Bible, which had 
been either lost, or given up to painful conjecture. 

These Biblical Researches in the Holy Land, published in their completed form in 3 vols., 
large 8vo, were the fruit of thirty years' previous preparation, of nearly two years spent in 
the work of exploration, and of sevral more years given to the reduction of his observs- 

24 



278 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tions. The work holds a high rank in the literature of the subject, and has given both to 
him and his coadjutor a lasting place among the original contributors to the geography of 
the Holy Laud. 

Professor Robinson's other works, all in the line of biblical studies, were numerous and 
important. The following are the chief: A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment ; A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, on the basis of Gesenius; A 
Dictionary of the Holy Bible, for the Use of Schools and Young Persons ; A Harmony of the 
Four Gospels in Greek, according to the text of Hahn, with notes ; A Harmony of the Four 
Gospels in English, according to the Common Version, with notes; Physical Geographj' of 
the Holj' Land, a supplement to the Biblical Researches. Professor Robinson published also 
a translation of Buttmann's Greek Grammar. 

Besides these separate works. Professor Robinson established The Biblical Repository, in 
1831, and The Bibliotheca Sacra, in 1843, and contributed largely to both. 

Mrs. Edward Robinson, 1797-1870, wife of the preceding, and daughter of Professor Yon 
Jakob of Halle, was a woman of great learning and of equal ability. She published a large 
number of works, all, however, except oue, in German. The only work written by her in Eng- 
lish was Historical Yiews of the Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations. She was 
first introduced to the republic of letters by Goethe, who said of her that " she had the heart 
of a woman but the brain of a man." Her works were issued under the assumed name of 
Talvi, an anagram on the initials of her maiden name, Therese AlbQTtine Louise Fon Zakob. 

Eli Smith, D. D., 1801-1857, one of the ablest and most sagacious of modern Christian mis- 
sionaries, was born at Hartford, Conn., and graduated at Yale, 1823. He studied theology at 
Andover, entered the service of the American Board of Foreign Missions, in 1826, and weut 
to Beirut, Syria, and continued his labors in that region during most of the remainder of 
his life. His long residence in Syria, his entire familiarity with the people and with the 
vernacular Arabic, together with his natural shrewdness and sagacity, made him invaluable 
as a companion and assistant to Dr. Robinson, and added largely to the value of Dr. Robin- 
son's great work, Biblical Researches in Palestine. Dr. Smitb published also, in connection 
with Dr. Dwight, another missionary. Missionary Researches in Armenia, in 2 vols. He 
prepared also, a Translation of the Bible into Arabic, and had seen the greater part of it in 
print before his death. 

Bela B. Edwards. 

Bela Bates Edwards, D. D., 1802-1852, was another of the distin- 
guished men connected with Andover Seminary and with New England 
theological literature during the period now under consideration. 

Dr. Edwards was born in Southampton, Mass. He graduated at Amherst, in the class of 
1824, and was afterwards for two years a Tutor there. He studied theology at Andover, and 
his chief work was done there. 

For five years, from 1828 to 1833, he was Secretary of the American Education Society, 
having his office for the first two years at Andover, and for the remaining three years at 
Boston. 

While thus engaged, and as a part of the means for carrying on the work of the Society, 
he established The American Quarterly Register, which he edited for fourteen years, from 
1828 to 1842. He bestowed a vast amount of labor on this work, designing to make it a 
storehouse of facts for jiresent and future generations. It contains indispensable materials 
for future history — elaborate descriptions and tabular views of academies, cofleges, profes- 
sional schools, public libraries, and eleemosynary associations in this country and in Europe; 
historical and chronological narratives of parishes, states, kingdoms, sects, eminent men, 



PROM 1830 TO 1850. 279 

and philanthropic schemes; and calm trustworthy notions of current literature, — all either 
prepared by himself, or at his suggestion, and passing under his final revision. 

Concurrently with this, during a part of its career, he Wiis engaged in another great en- 
terprise of a more strictly theological character. This was a (iuart«rly Theological Review, 
which he began in 1833 and continued for six years. The first three years it w;»a published 
as The Quarterly Observer. Then it was merged in the Biblical Repository. Under that 
name he edited it for the three ensuing years. After an interval of a few years, he entered 
upon the editorship of the Bibliotheca Sacra, in Audover, and continued to edit it till his 
death in 1852. 

In these several enterprises, during a period of twenty-three years. Dr. Edwards produced 
31 vols., 8vo, to which he contributed a much larger proportion of original matter than is 
usual with editors of such publications. The amount of authorship in them which belongs 
to him is very large. It is, too, of a kind which, though it may not find its way into the 
permanent literature of the country, yet exercised a prodigious influence upon the thought 
and culture of the men of his generation. 

Most of this large amount of literary- work was done by Dr. Edwards in connection with 
the duties of a laborious pi-ofessorship. From 1837 to 1852, he was Professor in Andover 
Theological Seminary. For the first eleven of these years, his department was that of He- 
brew. On the resignation of Prof. Stuart, in 1848, Greek and Biblical Literature were added. 

In the earlier part of his career. Prof. Edwards published The Eclectic Reader, and A 
Biography of Self- Made Men. But his great work in letters was what he did in the 
Register, Observer, Repository, and Bibliotheca Sacra. In these, as in all his doings, 
his aims were high, and he pursued them with an unselfish "devotion worthy of all com- 
mendation. 

Two volumes of his Writings have been published, with a Memoir by Prof. Park of 
Andover. 

Professor Upham. 

Thomas Cogswell Upham, D. D., 1799 , is extensively and favor- 
ably known as the author of a text-book on Mental Philosophy. 

Prof. Upham was born in Deerfield, N. H., and graduated at Dartmouth in the class of 
1818. He studied theology at Andover, and hecame Professor of Mental and Moral Phi- 
losophy at Bowdoiu College in 182-1. He is chiefly known by his work already named, on 
Mental Philosophy, in 3 vols. (The Intellect, The Sensibilities, and the Will, each filling one 
volume.) This work does not aim at originality, or the setting forth of any new system, but 
is a clear, systematic, and well digested exhibition of generally received doctrines, and with 
an arrangement admirably suited for the purposes of instruction. The consequence is that 
it has been largely used as a text-book, though not so much now as formerly. Prof. Upham 
has published also Outlines of Imperfect and Disordered Mental Action; Principles of the 
Interior or Hidden Life; A Treatise on the Divine Union; Religious Maxims having a Con- 
nection with the Doctrine and Practice of Holiness; The Life of Faith; Manual of Peace; 
American Cottage Life ; Life and Religious Experience of Madam Guyon; Life of Catharine 
Adorua; Essay on a Congress of Nations, etc. 

Charles C. Upham, 1802 , was born in St. John, New Brunswick, and graduated at 

Harvard, in the class of 1821. He was settled jis a minister in Salem, Mass., but gave up 
preaching on account of loss of voice. He has filled several public posts. His publications 
are, Letters on the Logos; Principles of Congregationalism; Lectures on Witchcraft ; Life 
of John C. Fremont, etc. 

Leonard Woods, Jr., D.D., LL.D., sou of the Leonard Woods mentioned iu the preceding 



280 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

chapter, was ordained in 1833, and was President of Bowdoin College from 1839 to 1866. He 
translated from the German Knapp's Lectures on Theology, 2 vols., Svo ; and has published 
Sunday Addresses. 

Dr. Taylor. 

Nathaniel W. Taylor, D.D., 1786-1859, was for many years the 
leader of theological opinion in New Haven. 

Dr. Taylor was born at New Milford, Conn., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1807. 
He was for two years amanuensis of President Dwight ; was pastor of the Centi'e Church of 
New Haven for ten years, 1812-1822; and Professor of Didactic Theology in Yale thirty-six 
years, 1822-1858. 

Dr. Taylor did not publish much. His only separate works are Practical Sermons, 
preached while he was pastor of Centre Church ; Essays, Lectures, etc., upon Silent Topics 
in Revealed Theology ; and Lectures on the Moral Government of God, 2 vols., Svo. He 
contributed also to the Christian Spectator, which was for a long time the organ of New 
Haven theological opinions, and it was through this channel mainly that he propagated his 
peculiar views. Those views were considered unsound by a large body of Calvinistic 
theologians, and as his views were maintained with unusual ability and persistence, a pro- 
longed and exciting controversy was the result. 

James Murdock, D.D., 1776-1856, was a native of Westbank, Conn., and a graduate of 
Tale. He was a Professor of Languages in the University of Vermont, and then of Rhetoric 
and Ecclesiastical History in the Theological Seminary at Andover. The last twenty-seven 
years of his life were spent in retirement at New Haven. He wrote a work on The Atone- 
ment, which excited considerable controversy His chief literary services were in the line of 
translation. He translated and introduced to American students Mosheim's Ecclesiastical 
History, which became a text-book in most theological seminaries. He contributed numer- 
ous articles to the Bibliotheca Sacra, Christian Spectator, New Englander, New York Ob- 
server, etc. 

Henry A. Roland, D. D., 1804-1860, was a native of Windsor, Conn., and a graduate of Yale, 
class of 1823. He studied theology at Andover, and preached at Fayetteville, N. C, at Hones- 
dale, Pa., in New York city, and in Newark, N. J. He published The Path of Life ; The Way 
of Peace; Light in a Dark Valley; The Common Maxims of Infidelity; besides single Ser- 
mons, Addresses, etc. 

Rev. Harvey Newcomb, D. D., 1803-1863, a native of Thatford, Mass., and a minister of the 
Congregational Church, has produced more than a hundred useful small volumes, some of 
which have had a large circulation. The following are a few : How to be a Man ; How to be 
a Lady ; Anecdotes for Boys ; Anecdotes for Girls ; Cyclopedia of Missions ; Young Lady's 
Guide ; Church Histories, small compends for Sunday-schools, 14 vols. ; Child's Scripture Li- 
brary, etc. 

Rev. Increase N. Tarbox, , has written several Sunday-school books, mostly of s 

historical character: Nineveh, or The Buried City; The Curse, or The Position in the 
World's History occupied by the Race of Ham ; Tyre and Alexandria, The Chief Commercial 
Cities of Scripture Times ; Missionary Patriots. 

Rev. William B. Tappan, 1794-1849, was born at Beverly, Mass. He was an agent of the 
American Sunday-School Union from 1826 to 1849. He published several volumes of poems : 
Poetry of the Heart; Sacred and Miscellaneous Poems; Poetry of Life; The Sunday-School 
and other Poems ; Late and Early Poems. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 281 

Mtkon Winslow, D.D., LL.D., 1789-1864, brother of Hubbard Winslow, and eminent as a 
foreign missionary, was born at Williston, Tt., and graduated at Middlebury College, in the 
class of 1815. He studied theology at Andover, and went in 1819 as a missionary to Ceylon, 
where he established a mission and founded a seminary at Oodoovilie. After laboring there 
for seventeen years, he removed his chief mission to Madras, and became President of the 
Madras College in 1840, and died at the Cape of Good Hope on his way back to America, in 
1864. He published A Sketch of the Missions ; Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Wadsworth Winslow, 
of the Ceylon mission ; Hints on Missions to India; and, bistly, A Comprehensive Tamil and 
English Dictionary. To this work Dr. Winslow devoted from three to four hours a day for 
nearly thirty years. It contains over 67,000 TamU words, — more than twice as many aa 
any previous dictionary. 

Hubbard Winslow, D. D., 1800-1864, a Presbyterian divine, brother of Myron Winslow, was 
born at Williston, Vt., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1825. He was pastor of the 
First Congregational Church in Dover, N. H., from 1828 to 1832 ; of the Bowdoin Street 
Church in Boston, from 1832 to 1844; Principal of the Mt. Yernon Institute for Young La- 
dies, from 1844 to 1853; pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Geneva, N.Y., from 1857 to 
1859. He published Elements of Intellectual Philosophy ; Elements of Moral Philosophy ; 
Controversial Theology; The Nature, Evidence, and Moral Value of the Doctrine of the 
Trinity; Christianity applied to Social and Civil Duties; Young Man's Aid to Knowledge ; 
Woman as she should be; Mental Cultivation ; Design and Mode of Baptism ; The Christian 
Doctrines ; History of the First Presbyterian Church, Geneva. 

Rev. Thomas T. Stone, 1801 , was bom at Waterford, Me., and graduated at Bowdoin, 

in the class of 1820. He has been settled as a pastor at Andover, Me., and at Boston, Mass. 
He has published Sermons on War ; The Rod and the Stafif , another volume of Sermons, and 
separate Addresses. 

President Woolsey. 

Theodore Dw^ght V^oolsey, D. D., LL.D., 1801 , the distin- 
guished President of Yale College, has published several valuable works, 
some showing advanced and accurate scholarship, others grappling with 
difficult social and political questions of the day. 

President Woolsey, for a quarter of a century President of Yale College, and nephew of 
President Dwight, was born in New York city He graduated at Yale, in the class of 1820; 
studied theology at Princeton ; studied Greek in Germany ; w;is Professor of Greek in Yale 
from 1831 to 1851 : and President from 1846 to 1871. He edited with fine scholarship. The 
Alcestis of Euripedes, The Antigones and The Electra of Sophocles, The Prometheus of 
Euripedes, and The Gorgias of Plato. He wrote An Introduction to the Study of Interna- 
tional Law; Essays on Divorces and Divorce Legislation; Christianity and Scepticism; and 
several occasional Discourses and Sermons. 

Joel Hawes, D.D,, 1789-1867, was a native of Medway, Mass., and a graduate of Brown 
University. He was for a long time settled at Hartford, Conn., and was one of the loading 
Congregational ministers of that State. His published writings are of a popular character, 
and on the practical duties of religion. The following are the chief: Lectures to Young 
Men; Religion of the East, with Impressions of Foreign Travel; Letters on Universalism; 
A Tribute to the Memory of the Pilgrims. 

Jajies 0. DwiQHT, D. D., 1786-1850, a native of Connecticut, and a son of President Dwight, 

24* 



282 AMERICAN L.ITERATURE. 

published a Life of Jonathan Edwards, and an edition of Edwards' Works, 10 vols^ 8to ; 
also, The Hebrew Wife. 

Rev. H-UiRisoN Gray Otis Dwight, 1803-1862, one of the early American missionaries, pub- 
lished Christiaaity Revived in the East ; Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth 0. Dwight. He was a 
native of C!onway, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1825. He studied the- 
ology at Andover. 

Rev. John Bovee Dods, 1795 , a native of New York State, has published : Sermons ; 

Philosophy of Mesmerism ; Philosophy of Electrical Psychology ; Immortality Triumphant; 
Spirit Manifestations Examined and Explained. 

Alonzo B. Chapin, D.D., 1808-1858, a native of Connecticut, wrote Primitive Church.; 
Gospel Truth; Puritanism not Protestantism; and numerous pamphlets. 

Dr. Humphrey. 

Heman Humphrey, D. D., 1779-1861, long the honored President of 
Amherst College, wrote several works of a popular character. 

Dr. Humphrey was a native of Simsbury, Conn., and a graduate of Yale. He was six years 
minister of the church at Pittsfield, Mass., and was President of Amherst College from 1823 
to 1845. He wrote the following works : Domestic Education ; Letters to a Son in the Minis- 
try ; Life and Writings of Professor Fiske ; Life and VV^ritings of T. H. Gallaudet; Sketches 
of the History of Revivals ; Tour in France, Great Britain, and Belgium. He wrote also for 
the weekly religious papers, especially for the New York Observer. 

Asahel Nettleton, D. D., 1784-1844, wjis a native of Killingworth, Conn., and a graduate 
of Yale College. He was specially celebrated as a revivalist preacher. He published a col- 
lection of Village Hymns, which had a large circulation. A volume of his Sermons and 
Addresses has been published. 

Bennett Tyler, D. D., 1783-1858, an eminent New England divine, was bom at Middle- 
bury, Conn., and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1804. Besides a long and useful pastorate 
in South Britain, Conn., and in Portland, Me., he was President of Dartmouth College from 
1822 to 1828, and Professor of Theology in East Windsor Theological Seminary, Conn., from 
1834 to 1858. He took an active part in the controversy growing out of the opinions ad- 
vanced by Dr. Taylor of New Haven, and sometimes called the New Haven Theology. He 
wrote A History of the New Haven Theology ; The Sufferings of Christ Confined to his 
Human Nature ; and Lectures on Theology, besides numerous Review articles. 

George B. Cheever, D. D., 1807 , is an eloquent preacher and popular writer ; he is a 

native of Main<i, and a graduate of Bowdoin, and during the meridian of his life has been 
pastor of the Church of the Puritans, New York. His principal works are the following: 
Deacon Giles's Distillery; A Reel in the Bottle for Jack in the Doldums; Lectures on 
Pilgrim's Progress ; The Hill Difficulty; Lectures on Hierarchial Despotism; Lectures on 
Cowper ; Power of the World to Come ; Common Place Book of Prose, and of Poetry ; Studies 
in Poetry ; The Right of the Bible in the Public Schools ; Punishment by Death ; Windings 
of the River of the Water of Life; Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; Wanderings of 
the Pilgrims in the Shadow of Mont Blanc, etc. 

Rev. Henry T. Cheever, , a Congregational minister, and brother to George B. 

C, is the author of several popular works : The Wiiobaud his Captors ; Life iu the Sandwich 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 283 

Islands; The Island- World of the Pacific; Autobiography of Capt. Obadiah Coryat; Biog- 
raphy of Nathaniel Cheever, and of Rev. Walter Colton ; The Pulpit and the Pew. 

Rev. Charles 6. Finney, 1792 , is a native of Connecticut. He attained great noto- 
riety about the year 1830, as a "Revivalist Preacher." He became President of Obcrlin 
College, in Ohio, in 1852. Publications: Lectures on Revivals; Lectures to Professing 
Christians; Sermons on Important Subjects; Lectures pn Systematic Theology ; Guide to 
the Serious. The two works first named have had a large sale, both in England and America. 
Mr. Finney's theological soundness has been called in question by some, but all admit his 
ability as a writer. 

Dr. Bethune. 

George Washington Bethune, D. D., 1805-1862, an eloquent pulpit 
orator of the Dutch Church, was distinguished equally by his scholarly 
tastes and the elegance of his writings. He published also a volume of ad- 
mirable poems, called Lays of Love and Faith. 

Dr. Bethune was born in New York city. He graduated in Dickinson College, in tho 
class of 1822, and studied theology at Princeton. He preached successively at Rhinebeck, 
Utica, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. He died in Florence. 

Besides a largo number of Sermons and Addresses, Dr. Bethune published a volume of 
poems entitled Lays of Love and Faith, which contains some charming pieces. Among his 
■works of a religious character are The Fruit of the Spirit, The History of a Penitent; Early 
Lost, Early Saved ; Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism ; A Commentary on 
the 130th Psalm. He edited also a volume of British Female Poets, and Walton's Com- 
plete Angler. He was- noted for his devotion to the piscatory art, and usually spent his 
summer holidays, rod in hand, in some out of the way place among the mountains. An 
interesting Memoir of him was prepared by Rev. A. R. Van Nest, D.D., containing many of 
his letters. 

The following interesting reminiscences of Dr. Bethune are given by Rev. A. A. Willi ts, D J). 

REMINISCENCES OF DR. BETHUNE. 

The greatest and noblest exhibitions of his oratorical powers were witnessed when he 
stood forth upon the platform on some grand occasion, with a noble and inspiring theme, 
unfettered by notes and unencumbered by barriers ! Ah ! then it was that his bow " abode in 
strength," and every shaft he sent from the string, like the arrow of Alcestis of old, would 
flash into flame from the very force and intensity of its flight. 

It was when thus exalted, and inspired by a noble theme, and before a fitting auditory, 
that all the rich resources of his great nature and rare culture seemed to be in a state of 
fusion, and came glowing like molten gold from the furnace of his enkindled soul. And 
yet, amid all the ardor of his oratory, there was a perfect equipoise. He knew how, "in 
the very torrent and tempest of his passion, to beget a temperance that should give it 
Bmoothness." 

You saw the storm lifting up its mighty waves, and heard "deep calling unto deep ;" 
but the ship riding that raging flood was not like that one which bore St. Paul on the 
Adriatic Sea —a poor helpless waif, driven before the Euroclydon, with mainsail struck and 
helm unshipped — but was rather like the historic picture of "Old Ironsides clawing off a 
lee shore" — sails snugly reefed, yards tautly braced, halliards securely belayed, every man 
at his post, and a lUiister of the situation at the wheel, with strong arm, clear head, and 
keen vision, keeping the ship to her course despite the tempest, and making every cresting 



284 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

billow bow in submission beneath her hissing keel. The only regret one felt in hearing 
him on these grand occasions was that these richest effusions of his mind, these noblest exhi- 
bitions of his pathos and passion, could not be preserved for the benefit and admiration of 
mankind. 

For, alas ! it was all too ethereal for that. No pen could report it, no process could pre- 
serve it; one might as well try to catch the flash and exjilosion that drives a bullet from 
the rifle as to attempt to catch the spirit and flame of such eloquence. The pierced target 
you might indeed find — the flattened bullet and the scorched wad — and these would tell, 
most significantly, of the fire and force that drove the bullet on wings of lightning to the 
mark; but the tthereal power would not be there. No, the electric flash was but an instant 
before your eyes, and the echo of the sharp explosion had passed, like a spirit, behind 
the hills. 

But while Dr. Bethune had few equals, and perhaps no superior, on the rostrum, he shone 
with a lustre quite as attractive, though moue subdued, in the social circle. Here he was 
'■'■facile princeps." His warm heart, his ever-cheerful temper, his rich and varied acquire- 
ments, his keen and playful wit, and his genial humor and companionable disposition, made 
him a welcome guest in every circle he visited, and constituted him at once its centre of 
attraction. 

All who knew him will ever remember the fascination of his social qualities. Ah ! how 
brilliant and ready was his wit. Woe to the reckless knight that undertook to run a tilt 
against it ! It was generally short, sharp, and decisive ; a few brilliant flashings of weapons, 
and then a dismounted cavalier rising from the dust with a shivered lance, amid the merry 
shouts of the company, (in which the discomfited knight was quite as likely to join as the 
rest,) for while Bethune's Avit flashed as bright and keen as a falchion, the blade was in the 
hand of a master who knew how to wield it with discretion and good-humor. 

One instance I now call to mind, which I think has never been in print, but which is 
entirely too good to be lost. 

There resided in the city of B , during Dr. Bethune's pastorate there, a man of wealth 

and social position, who was rather noted for his penuriousness. He was a near neighbor 
of the Doctor's, and they were well acquainted and quite familiar. This neighbor was a 
large man, of brusque manner, and not devoid of a rude, blunt kind of humor, and there 
had been repeatedly good-natured passages of wit between them. One morning, as Bethune 
stepped from his door to go down town, he saw his neighbor just ahead of him, moving in 
the same direction. He quickened his pace, and soon overtook him. As he joined him, he 

saluted him good-naturedly, "Good morning, Mr. S , good morning ; how do you do, sir, 

this morning? " S turned, saw who it was, and with a merry twinkle in the corner of 

his eye, said, roughly, (intending to be jocose,) " What is it your business how I do?" 
Bethune instantly and calmly replied, with an air of great benevolence, "Well, Mr. S — — , 
I 'm one of those kind of men who take an interest in the meanest of God's creation." 

The following Sonnet, introducing his Lays, gives a good idea of his fine poetic abilities. 

SONNET. 

As one arranges in a single vase 

A little store of unpretending flowers, 

So gathered I some records of past hours 
And trust them, gentle reader, to thy grace ; 
Nor hope that in my pages thou wilt trace 

The biilliaut proof of high poetic powers; 
But dear memorials of my happy days, 

When heaven shed blessings on my head like showers; 



FROM 1800 TO 1830. 285 

Clotliing with beauty even the desert place; 

Till I, with thankful gladness in my looks, 
Turned me to God, sweet nature, loving friends, 

Christ's little children, well-worn ancient books, 
The charm of art, the rapture music sends; 
And sang away the grief that on man's lot attends. 

William C. Brownlee, D.D., 1784 , was a native of Scotland, but long a resident of 

the United States, where he attained great eminence as a Pastor in the Dutch Reformed 
Church, New York. He was particularly prominent as a controversial writer, his chief 
attacks being divided between the Catholics and the Quakers. Principal works : On 
Popery ; On the Roman Catholic Controversy ; The Religious Principles of the Society of 
Quakers ; The Christian Father at Home ; The Christian Youth's Book ; Manual for Com- 
municants ; The Deity of Christ; History of the Western Apostolic Churches ; The Whigs 
of Scotland, a Romance. 

Joseph Frederick Berg, D. D., 1812-1871, was an eminent divine and controversial writer 
of the Reformed Dutch Church. Dr. Berg was born in the island of Antigua, where his 
parents were Moravian missionaries. He was for a long time pastor of a Reformed Dutch 
Church in Philadelphia, and afterwards Professor in the Theological Seminary at New Bruns- 
wick, N. J. His works, chiefly controversial, have been numerous : Lectures on Romanism ; 
Synopsis of the Theology of Peter Dens ; Papal Rome ; A Voice from Rome ; History of the 
Holy Robe of Treves ; Oral Controversy with a Catholic Priest ; Mysteries of the Inquisi- 
tion; Reply to Archbishop Hughes; E.xpose of the Jesuits ; Church and State ; Old Paths; 
Plea for the Divine Law against Murder; Prophecy of the Times ; The Stone and the Image ; 
Demons and Guardian Angels, a Refutation of Spiritualism ; The Olive Branch, on Slavery. 

Rev. David Abeel, 1S04-1846, was a missionary of the Reformed Dutch Church to the 
East. His works are Journal of a Residence in China, Missionary Convention at Jerusalem, 
and Claims of the World to the Gospel. 

John Scudder, M. D., 1804-1865, was a native of New Brunswick, N. J. He first went to 
India in 1819, as a missionary physician ; was afterwards ordained, and labored there many 
years. He died at the Cape of Good Hope. He belonged to the Reformed Dutch Church. 
He wrote Tales about the Heathen ; The Redeemer's Liist Command ; Letters to Sabbath- 
School Children; Letters from the East; Letters to Pious Young Men; Appeal to Youth in 
Behalf of the Heathen; The Harvest Perishing; Appeal to Mothers, etc. 

Dr. Charles P. Krauth. 

Charles Philip Krauth, D, D., 1797-1867, was a leading theologian 
of the Lutheran Church in the United States. The principal field of his 
labor was at Gettysburg, as President of the College, and as Professor in the 
Theological Seminary. 

Dr. Krauth was born in Montgomery County, Pa. He was for a time President of Penn- 
sylvania College, at Gettysburg, and also Professor of Theology in the General Theological 
Seminary at the same place, but in 1857 he resigned the Presidency of the College and gave 
his time entirely to the duties of the Theological professorship. He published An Oration 
on the German Language; An Inaugural Address; Human Life, a Baccalaureate Address; A 
Discourse on Henry Clay ; edited The Lutheran Sunday-School Hymn-Book, and was joint 
editor, with Professor Stoever, of the Evangelical Review. 



286 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

John G. Schmucker, D.D., 1771-1854, was a Lutheran pastor iu York, Pa. Besides numer- 
ous works in German, lie published Prophetic History of the Christian Revelation Ex- 
plained. 

Samuel S. Schmucker, D. D., 1799-1863, for a long time President of the Theological 
Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., was a son of Dr. John G. Schmucker, and was born in Tlagers- 
town, Md. His publications are mostly in English. The following are the chief: Psychol- 
ogy, or Elements of a New System of Mental Philosophy ; The Christian Temple ; Element- 
ary Course of Biblit-al Tlieology, a translation from the German ; A Plea for the Sabbath- 
Bchool System; Elements of Popular Theology; Portraiture of Lutheranisin; Patriarchs 
of American Lutheranism ; Life and Times of Alexander Hamilton ; of Thomas Jefferson ; 
of Henry Clay ; of Daniel Webster; of J. C. Fremont ; Arctic Explorations and Discoveries ; 
Life of Dr. Kane, etc. 

Benjamin Kurtz, D.D., LL.D., 1795-1805, a leading divine in the Lutheran Church, was 
born at Harrisburg, Pa. After studying the classics iu the academy at Harrisburg, he placed 
himself in 1812 under the private tuition of P^ev. Dr. George Lochman, of Lebanon, Pa., 
better known as " Father Lochman," to be prepared for the gospel ministry. In 1815 he 
entered upon the ministry at Hagerstown, Md., and remained there sixteen years. In 1825, 
during the time of this pastorate, he was sent to Germany by the General Synod to seek aid 
for the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, just then struggling into life. He was absent 
two years on this mission, and its results were from that day eminently successful. In 1831, 
Dr. Kurtz became pastor of the Lutheran church at Chambersburg. Two years afterwards, 
being threatened with pulmonary disease, he was obliged to forego preaching, and gave up 
his pastoral charge. In 1833, he took charge of the Lutheran Observer, of Baltimore, and 
for the next twenty-nine j'ears he gave his best energies to this paper. He found it a strug- 
gling, sickly, seven-by-nine semi-monthly, with a subscription list of seven to eight hundred ; 
he left it a large, handsome, prosperous weekly, with a list of as many thousands. Dr. Kurtz 
also took an active part in the management of the Lutheran Book Company, established iu 
Baltimore, in 1840, and he was mainly instrumental in founding the Missionary Institute, at 
Selingsgrove, Pa. Dr. Kurtz's publications were First Principles of Religion for Children ; 
Sermons on Sabbath-Schools ; Theological Sketch Books, 2 vols. ; Infant Baptism and Affusion ; 
Letters from Europe, 2 series; The Social Catechism ; Lutheran Prayer-Book, for the use of 
families and individuals ; Prayer in all its Forms, and Training up of Children ; "Why are you a 
Lutheran? The Year Book of the Reformation, and a large number of Addresses, Sermons, 
etc. After all, however, the most important literary labor of Dr. Kurtz is to be found in the 
twenty-nine volumes of the Lutheran Observer, which he edited, and much of which he 
wrote. 

Lewis Mater, D.D., 1783-1849, was an eminent divine and Professor of Theology in the 
German Reformed Church. He was a native of Lancaster, Pa. He published The Sin against 
the Holy Ghost; Lectures on Scriptural Subjects; History of the German Reformed Church. 

Philip F. Mayer, D.D., 1781-1858, was pastor in the Lutheran church iu Philadelphia for 
more than half a century. He wrote Instruction in the Principles and Duties of the Chris- 
tian Religion ; Litanies and Prayers. 

Theophilus Stork, D.D., 1815 , was born in Salisbury, N. C, and graduated at Penn- 
sylvania College, Gettysburg, in the class of 1835. He was for fifteen years pastor succes- 
sively of St. Matthew's and St. Mark's Lutheran churches, Philadelphia. He has published 
The Children of the New Testament ; Life of Martin Luther; Luther's Christmas-Tree; Jesus 
in the Temple; Home Scenes in the New Testament; etc. 

Henry Harbaugh, D.D., 1817-1867, a German Reformed theologian, was born in Franklin 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 287 

County, Pa. He was settled at Lancaster, and afterwards in Germantown. lie published 
several works: The Fathers of the German Reformed Church in Europe and America; 
Heavenly Recognition; The Heavenly Home, &c. 

John W. Nevin, D.D., 1803 , is a native of Franklin County, Pa., and a graduate of 

Uuion College, in the chiss of 1821. He studied the-.dugy at Princeton ; became Professor of 
Oriental and Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary at Alleghany ; Professor of 
Theology in the Theological Seminary at Mercersbnrg, Pa. ; and in 1853 President of Mar- 
shall College, Pa. Dr. Nevin has published the following works: Summary of Biblical 
Antiquities; The Anxious Bench ; The Mystical Presence; Antichrist, or the Sfiirit of Sect 
and Schism ; The History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism ; A Dissertation on the 
Apostles' Creed; Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord's Supper. He has written 
largely also for the Mercersbnrg Review. Dr. Nevin's theological views savor of mysticism, 
but command respect even from his opponents by the learning and ability with which they 
are put forth, and by the masculine vigor of his style, as well as by the eminent purity of 
his life. 

Dr. Channing. 

William Ellery Channog, D.D., 1780-1842, was for a long time the 
acknowledged leader and the most distinguished representative of the Uni- 
tarian Church in the United States. His works have been published in 6 
vols., consisting mostly of sermons and addresses, and of articles from the 
Christian Examiner. 

Dr. Channing was confessedly the most eloquent Unitarian preacher in the United States. 
His sermons are considered models of pulpit eloquence. He was as remarkable for his gen- 
tleness and charity, and for the dignified and refined courtesy of his manners, as for his elo- 
quence. He took an active part in the formation of the Peace Society, and he sympathized 
with the Temperance cause, and other philanthropic enterprises. He preached mostly in 
Boston, and was for a long time the "bright particular star" of that metropolis. The two 
essays of his which have attracted most attention are those on Milton and Napoleon. The 
former of these was severely criticised by Macanlay. Next to these two essays come his 
works on the Evidences of Christianity, Self-Culture, and the Elevation of the Laboring 
Classes. His sermons on The Paternal Character of God, and on the Loveliness of the 
Example of Christ, are also celebrated. 

Wn-LiAM Francis Channing, M.D., 1820 , son of the preceding, has written mostly on 

professional subjects : Davis's Manual of Magnetism ; Notes on the Medical Application of 
Electricity ; The American Fire Alarm Telegraph. 

William Henry Channing, 1810 , is a nephew and biographer of Dr. William Ellery 

Channing and a Unitarian preacher of note. Among his publications are : Memoirs of Wm. 
Ellery Channing; The Christian Chnrch and Social Reform; Memoirs of Rev. James 11. Per- 
kins, etc. He is son of Francis DanaChaniiing, and is settled in the Hope Street Unitarian 
Church, in Liverpool, as successor to Rev. James Martineau. 

Edward T. Channing, LL. D., 1790-1856, a brother of the celebrated Wm. Ellery Chan- 
ning, was Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard. He edited the N. Am. Review 
for three years, and contributed many articles to its jiages. He wrote the I>ife of William 
Ellery for Sparks's American Biography. His Lectures to the senior class in College were 
published after his death. 



288 AMERICAN LITERATUKE. 

Walter Channing, M. D., 1786 , another brother of Wm. Ellery C. Dr. Channing 

"vras graduated at Harvard, but studied medicine in Philadelphia. He became Professor of 
Midwifery, etc., at Harvard, and published many professional works. Besides these, he wrote 
Addresses on the Prevention of Pauperism; Professional Reminiscences of Foreign Travel; 
A Ph^-sician's Vacation, or a Summer in Europe, etc. 

William Ellery Channing, , son of Dr. Walter Channing, has published the fol- 
lowing : Poems ; Youth of the Poet and Painter ; Conversations in Rome, between an Artist, 
a Catholic, and a Critic ; The Woodman and other Poems. 

Nathaniel Frothingham, D.I)., 1793-1870, was a nati-pe of Boston and a graduate of 
Harvard. He was for a long time oue of the leading Unitarians of Boston. He became 
Instructor in Rhetoric and Oratory in the University in 1811, and pastor of the First Con- 
gregational Church of Boston, in 1815. The latter post he retained for thirty-five years. He 
published Deism or Christianity ; Sermons in the order of a Twelvemonth ; Metrical Pieces, 
translated and original. 

Ahdeews Norton, D. D., 1786-1853, was a native of Hingham, Mass., and a graduate of 
Harvard, of the class of 1804, and for a number of years, until his resignation in 1830, Pro- 
fessor in the theological faculty of that university. Dr. Norton was an eminent divine of 
what is generally called the orthodox or conservative Unitarian school, and enjoyed a high 
reputation as a thinker and writer. He contributed a number of articles to various secular 
and religious reviews, was editor of the General Repository, and delivered several addresses, 
which were subsequently published. His principal works are: A Statement of the Reasons 
for not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians, etc.; Historical Evidence of the Genuineness 
of the Gospels ; Internal Evidence of the Genuineness, etc. He also left a translation of the 
Gospels, in MS., which was afterwards published by his son. Dr. Norton is the author of a 
few poems, which have been highly praised by Griswold, Peabody, and others. — Cr.4RLE3 

Eliot Norton, 1827 , son of the preceding, was born and educated at Cambridge. He 

has contributed papers to the North American Review and,, the Atlantic Monthly, and has 
published a volume, called Considerations on Some Recent Social Theories. 

George R. Notes, D. D., 1798-1868, Professor of Hebrew in Cambridge University, was a 
native of Newburyport, and a graduate of Harvard. Hi^ literary labors were confined 
mostly to making new translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. He bestowed upon this work 
much labor and critical acumen. His versions were accompanied with brief notes. He 
translated in this way the Book of Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, all the Prophets, 
in chronological order. Professor Noyes contributed also to the Christian Examiner, and 
other periodicals. 

Dr. Furness. 

William Henry Furness, D. D., 1802 , has been for nearly half 

a century the chief representative of Unitarian opinion in Philadelphia. 
As a theologian, he belongs to the extreme humanitarian school, as distin- 
guished from that of Channing, Peabody, and Norton. He writes with 
great elegance and persuavsiveness, and is very accomplished as a man of 
letters. His principal writings are on the Life of Jesus. 

Dr. Furness is a native of Boston and a graduate of Cambridge. He has been pastor of the 
Unitarian church in Philadelphia since 1825. lie is universally respected as a man of fine 
taste and elegant culture, even by those who dissent entirely from his religious opinions. His 
principal publications are the folio wing : Remarks on the Four Gospels; Jesus and bis 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 289 

Biographprs; History of Jesus ; Thoughts on the Life and Character of Jesus of Nazareth; 
Domestic Worsiiip ; Mirroi of Nature, translated from the German ; Julius, and other Tales, 
from tire German ; Gems of German verse, translated. 

" lie is a man of a rich, active, and fruitful intellect, of a most liberal culture, of warm 
enthusiasm and of glowing fancy. But he is neither a logician nor a critic. iEsthetic con- 
siderations weigh more with him than historical proofs, and vividness of conception than 
demonstration. So far is he from needing facts to verify his theories, that he is ready to 
reject the best authenticated facts, if they would not flow necessarily from his a priori rea- 
soning. A History of Jesus is a title worthy of the author's honesty. The definite article 
would have been sadly out of place ; for the work is not an exposition of tlie Gospels as they 
are, but an original Gospel, embracing and endorsing such portions of the record of the 
evangelists, as accorded with his notions of what must and should have been, and telling 
the rest of the story as the evangelists would have told it had they belonged to his school 
of philosophy and theology. His theory is, we believe, entirely original and peculiar. It 
is naturalism in a form so irrational and untenable, that we can hardly conceive of its ever 
finding a second advocate." — Peahodij in N. A. Review. 

" He is a poet of fine taste and deep feeling, and has published fugitive poems, chiefly 
hymns and devotional pieces. He has made exquisite translations from the German, chief of 
•which stands his version of Schiller's 'Song of the Bell.' He is a lover of the beautiful 
arts, and has rendered them great service in Philadelphia." — Men of the Times. 



Orville Dewey, D.D., 1794 , a Unitarian minister of high standing, was born in Berk- 
shire County, Miiss. He has published Discourses on Various Subjects, 3 vols. ; The Old 
World and the New, 2 vols.; Moral Views of Commerce, Societj', and Politics; Discourses on 
Human Life ; Discourses and Reviews on Controversial Theology and Practical Religion ; On 
the Nature of Religion and on Business. 

George W. Buenap, D. D., 1802 , a graduate of Harvard, and a Unitarian minister, 

has written numerous works on the Unitarian controversy: Doctrines of Controversy be- 
tween Unitarians and Other Denominations ; Popular Objections to Unitarian Christianity 
Considered ; Expository Lectures on the Principal Texts which relate to the Doctrine of the 
Trinity ; The Sphere and Duties of Women ; Lectures to Young Men; The Rectitude of Hu- 
man Nature ; Christianity, Its Essence and Evidence. 

Stephen Greexleaf Bclfinch, D. D., 1809-1870, was bom in Boston. He graduated at 
Columbia College, D. C, and studied divinity at Cambridge. He published the following: 
Contemplations of the Saviour; Poems; The Holy Land ; Lays of the Gospel; Communion 
Thoughts. 

Rev. Abiel Abbott Litermore, 1811 , was born at Wilton, N. H. He graduated at 

Cambridge in 1833, and studied theology there. He preached successively in Keene, N. H. ; 
in Cincinnati, 0. ; in Yonkers, N. Y. ; and since 1863 has been President of the Theological 
Seminary, Meadville, Pa. He has published Lectures to Young Men; The Marriage 0ff"er- 
ing; Commentaries on the Four Gospels, on The Acts, and on The Romans ; The War with 
Mexico Reviewed ; Discouraoa ; Christian Hymns, a compilation. Ho has contributed also 
to the Christian Examiner, North American Review, etc. 

Rev. William Mountford, , a Unitarian divine, born in England, became minis- 
ter in 1850 to a congregation in Worcester, Miiss. Ho has published the following : Chris- 
tianity, the Deliverance of the Soul and its Life ; Martyria, a Legend ; Euthanasy, or Happy 
Tajk towards the End of Life; Thorpe, a Quiet English Town and Life Therein. 

25 ir 



21)0 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

Jason Whitman, 1799-1848, a Unitarian clergyman of some note, was bom in Bridgewater, 
Mass., and educated at Harvard. He was settled at Portland, Me., and at Lexington, Mass. 
He published Young Man's Assistant ; Young Lady's Aid ; Week-day Religion ; Discourses 
on the Lord's Prayer ; Memoirs of Deacon John Whitman, and of Bernard Whitman. 

Thomas R. Sullivan, 1799-1862, a Unitarian preacher, was born at Brookline, Mass^ and 
graduated at Hiirvard, in the class of 1817. He preached at Keene, N. H., from 1825 to 1835 ; 
and taught school in Boston from 1835 to ls62. He published Letters against the Immediate 
Abolition of Slavery ; Limits of Responsibility in Reforms; Remarks on Robinson's Sermon 
on the Divinity of Christ. 

Chandler Robbins, D. D., 1810 , for many years pastor of the Second Unitarian 

Church, Boston, was born at Lynn, and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1829. He has 
published A History of the Second Church, or Old North, in Boston ; Liturgy for the Use of 
a Christian Church ; Hymn-Book for Christian Worship ; Portrait of a Christian drawn 
from Life, a Memoir of Maria Elizabeth Clapp, and several occasional Sermons. 

Thomas B. Thater, 1812 , a Unitarian clergyman, was born in Boston, and studied, 

but did not graduate, at Harvard. He has published Origin and History of the Doctrine of 
Endless Punishment ; Theology of Universalism ; Over the River, or Pleasant Walks into 
the Valley of Shadows and Beyond ; Origin and History of the Belief in a Devil ; Chris- 
tianity versus Infidelity ; Bible-class Assistant. 

Theodore Parker. 

Theodore Parker, 1810-1860, represents the most advanced stage of 
American Eationalism. His position indeed can hardly be defined other- 
wise than one of open and avowed unbelief in Christianity. He was re- 
markable equally for the ultraism of his opinions, and for the learning, 
ability, and resolution with which he maintained them. He is admitted 
by all to have been a man of rare genius. He was an incessant worker, 
both with his pen and his tongue. His collected Works have been pub- 
lished in 12 vols., besides the 2 vols, of his Life and Correspondence. 

Parker was born in Lexington, Mass. He entered Harvard in 1830, but did not graduate. 
He studied divinity at Harvard, and had charge of a Unitarian congregation in Roxburj', 
which he subsequently abandoned for an independent service in Boston. 

His departure from the ordinary Unitarian doctrines was marked by two sermons, one in 
1841, on The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity, the other in 1842, A Discourse 
of Matters relating to Religion. His final rupture with the orthodox party, however, did 
not take place until after his return from Europe in 1845. 

From 1845 until 1859, when he travelled again in the vain quest of health, his labors were 
unremitting and multifarious. He translated from the German numerous works on theol- 
ogy and biblical criticism, and took very decided ground on the slavery question. 

He was one of the first to rise up against the Fugitive Slave Law, not shrinking from the 
boldest denunciation of its promoters. His celebrated oration on the death of Daniel Webster 
gave great offence to the friends of that statesman. . 

A collected edition of his works in 12 vols, was published in London in 1863, and his Life 
and Letters, 2 vols., by Weiss, in 1864. 

Whatever opinion may be held of the soundness of Theodore Parker's religious views 
there can be no question as to his remarkable genius. He was one of the most original and 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 291 

daring thinkers that America has produced. No fear of logical deductions or of social con- 
Bequeuces ever deterred him from taking what he deemed a correct position or a righteous 
step. He died from sheer exhaustion through overwork. His writings, of whatever kind, 
sparkle with freshness of thought and glow with feeling. They stimulate and suggest, even 
■where they run most strongly counter to our cherished beliefs. Though stern and uncom- 
promising in his public acts, he is said to have been remarkably genial and companionable 
in private life. 

Bishop Hopkins. 

John Henry Hopkins, D.C.L., LL.D., 1792-1868, Bishop of Vermont, 
published a large number of works on subjects connected with his profes- 
sion. He was Bishop of his Diocese for thirty -six years, and took an active 
part in ecclesiastical affairs. 

Bishop Hopkins was a native of Dublin, but emigrated to the United States when eight 
ye&T3 old. He was educated in Philadelphia, studied law, and was admitted to practise in 
Pittsburg. In 1823, he took orders in the Episcopal Church, and after preaching in Pitts- 
burg and Boston, became in 1832 Bishop of Termont. He published the following works: 
Christianity Vindicated; The Primitive Creed Examined and Explained; The Primitive 
Church compared with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Present Day ; The Church of 
Rome in her Primitive Purity compared with the Church of Rome of the Present Day; The 
Novelties which Disturb our Peace : The History of the Confessional ; Lectures on the British 
Reformation; The End of Controversy Controverted, a reply to Archbishop Kenrick of 
Baltimore ; Gothic Architecture, etc. 

Hbnrt U. Onderdonk, D. D., 1789-1858, Bishop of Pennsylvania, was born in New York 
city. The work by which he is best known is a tract, Episcopacy Tested by Scripture, which 
occasioned much controversy. It was reviewed by Albert Barnes, and criticised with much 
severity by Addison Alexander in the Princeton Review. Bishop Onderdonk published also 
Episcopacy Examined and Reexamined; Essay on Regeneration; Family Devotions from 
the Liturgy ; Sermons and Episcopal Charges. 



Bishop Potter. 

Alonzo Potter, D. D., LL. D., 1800-1865, Bishop of Pennsylvania, was 
a man of great breadth of views, and exerted an extensive influence outside 
of his official range of duty. He took an active part especially in the 
movements for increasing and improving the means of popular education, 
and was often present in associations of teachers, and always extremely 
welcome there. One of the most popular of his works was The School and 
The Schoolmaster, the latter part being written by George B. Emerson. 

Bishop Potter was Ixirn in Dutchess County, N. Y., and graduated in Union College, with 
the first honors of the class of 1818. lie was at different times. Tutor, Professor, and Vice- 
President of the College, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, in Boston, and finally, for the 
last twenty years of his life. Bishop of Pensylvania. 

Besides the work already named, he wrote the following: Political Economy; The Prin- 
ciples of Science applied to the Domestic and Mechanic Arts and to Manufactures and Agri- 
culture ; Hand-book for Readers and Students, containing a classified list of books on various 
subjects; Addresses, Episcopal Charges, etc. 



292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

"WiLUAM Meade, D. D., 1789-1S62, Bishop of Virginia, was a native of Clarke County of that 
State, and was educated at Princeton. He published the following works: Old Churches, 
Ministers, and Families of Virginia, 2 vols., 8vo ; Lectures to Students ; Lectures on the Pas- 
toral OflQce ; Family Prayers. 

Thomas C. Brownell, D. D., LL. D., 1779-1865, Bishop of Connecticut, was the author of 
several popular works : Religion of the Heart, partly compiled, 5 vols. ; Commentary on the 
Book of Common Prayer; Consolation for the Afflicted; Family Prayer-Book; Exhortation 
to Repentance ; Youthful Christian's Guide. Bishop Brownell was born at Westford, Mass., 
and graduated at Union, in IBOi, in which college he was successively Tutor, Professor of 
Rhetoric and Belles-Letters, and Professor of Chemistry. He became Bishop of Connecticut 
in 1819. He was mainly instrumental in founding Trinity College, Hai'tford, and in secur- 
ing for it an endowment. 

George Burgess, D. D., 1809-1866, Bishop of Maine, was born in Providence, R. L, and 
graduated at Brown University, in 1826. After being Tutor there tv/o years, he studied two 
years at Gottingen, Bonn, and Berlin. He was rector of Christ Church, Hartford, from 1834 
to 1847, and Bishop of Maine from 1847 to 1866. He wrote several works of note : The Book 
of Psalms in English Verse; The Christian Life; The Last Enemy Conquering and Con- 
quered ; Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England. 

Bishop Doane. 

George Washington Doane, D. D., LL. D., , Bishop of New 

Jersey, was a man of fine culture and literary tastes. Besides numerous 
sermons and addresses, he published a volume of poems, Songs by the Way, 
which have been much admired. 

Bishop Doane was born at Trenton, N. J., and educated at Union College. He was for 
some years rector of Trinity Church, New York, then of Trinity Church, Boston, and became 
Bishop of New Jersey in 1832, in which office he continued until the time of his death. lie 
founded the Episcopal College at Burlington, N. J., for the education of boys; also, St. 
Mary's Hall, in the same place, for the education of young ladies. He had a controversy 
with Dr. Boardman, on Apostolical Succession, and he published many Sermons and Charges. 
His works have been published in four large volumes. 

Two of Bishop Doane's short lyrics are quoted. The first was occasioned by the following 
incident. For several mornings a little bird found its way into the saloon at St. Mary's 
Hall, where Miss Stanley's Sunday-class was gathered. The allusion to Bishop Ken arose 
from the fact that his " Morning Hymn " is always sung there on Sundays. 

TO THE SUNDAY MORNING BIRD. 

Little winged bit of song, 
Wheresoe'er thou dost belong, 
Come and go without a fear; 
Thou art ever welcome here. 

Dost thou know the sacred day? 
Dost thou know where maidens pray? 
Wast thou won down from the sky 
By our chapel minstrelsy? 

Did the angels tell thee when 

Thou might'st hear good Bishop Ken, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 293 

In that Bweetest Morning Hymn 
Fit for Clianting Cherubim 1 

Did the Saviour, from above 
In the fulness of his love, 
Send a message down, by thee ; 
"Let the children come to me?" 

Little winged bit of song, 
Wheresoe'er thou dost belong. 
Come and go without a fear, 
Thou art ever welcome here. 

EVENING. 

Softly now the light of day 
Fades upon my sight away; 
Ftee from care, from labor free. 
Lord, I would commune with Theol 
Thou, whose all pervading eye 

Naught escapes, without, within. 
Pardon each infirmity, 

Open fault, and secret sin. 

Soon for me the light of day 
Shall forever pass away; 
Then, from sin and sorrow free. 
Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee! 
Thou who, sinless, yet hast known 

All of man's infirmity; 
Thou, from Thy eternal throne, 

Jesus, look with pitying eye. 

Frederick Beaslet, D.D., 1777-1845, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, was 
author of several works which attracted considerable attention : An Examination of the 
Oxford Divinity ; A Search of Truth in the Science of the Human Mind ; Reply to the "Views 
of Dr. Channing. 

Jonathan M. Wainwright, D. D., D.C.L., 1792-185-t, an eminent clergyman of the Episco- 
pal Church, was born in Liverpool, England. He came to the United States at the age of 
eleven ; was graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1812, and was tutor there for a time. He 
was rector of Christ Church, Hartford, in 1818; assistant in Trinity, New York, 1819-1821 ; 
rector of Grace Church, New York, 1821-1834; rector of Trinity, Boston, 1834-1837 ; assistant 
in Trinity, New York, 1837-1854. During the last two years of this time, he was Provisional 
Bishop of the diocese. 

Dr. Wainwright published the following works: The Land of Bondage, being the journal 
of a tour in Egypt; The Pathways and Abiding Places of Our Lord, illustrated in the jour- 
nal of a tour through the Land of Promise ; Cliants Adapted to the Hymns in the Morning 
and Evening Service; Music of the Church; with Dr. Muhlenberg, The Choir and Family 
Psalter; Lessons on the Church; Order of Family Prayer; Short Family Pniyers; Contro- 
versy with Dr. Potts on the theme, " There cannot be a Church without a Bishop." Dr. Wain- 
wright edited also The Life of Heber, and several elegant illustrated books, The Women of 
the Bible, Our Saviour with Prophets and Apostles, etc. 

26* 



294 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Ha^ATks. 

Francis L. Hawks, D. D., LL. D., 1798-1866, was one of the most dis- 
tinguished pulpit orators of the Episcopal Church in the United States. 
He was also an able and voluminous writer. 

Dr. Hawks was a native of Newbern, N. C, and a graduate of the "University of that State. 
He was bred originally to the law, and entered actively into political life, but he afterwards 
entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church. He preached for a short time in Philadelphia, 
and for five years in New Orleans, but his chief ministerial service was in the city of New 
York, where he died. Two or three Bishoprics were offered him, but were declined. 

The following are his principal works : History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
Virginia; do. in Maryland; Commentary on the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal 
Church in the United States ; Auricular Confession in the Episcopal Church ; Egypt and its 
Monuments, a large, embellished 8vo; The Romance of Biography; Cyclopaedia of Biogra- 
phy ; Narrative of Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan, etc. 

John A. Clark, D.D., 1801-1843, an eminent Episcopal minister, rector of St. Andrew's 
Church, Philadelphia, published the following works : The Young Disciple; The P'astor's 
Testimony ; Gleanings by the Way ; Glimpses of the Old World ; Gathered Fragments ; 
Awake, Thou Sleeper. 

Benjamin Dorr, D. D., 1796-1869, an eminent clergyman of the Episcopal Church, rector for 
a long time of old Christ Church, Philadelphia. He was born in Massachusetts, and gradu- 
ated at Dartmouth, N. H. After ministering in various places, he was settled in Christ 
Church in 1837. His works are Churchman's Manual ; Recognition of Friends in Another 
World; Sunday-School Teacher's Encouragement; Prophecies and Types ; Invitation to 
the Holy Communion; Travels in the East; History of a Pocket Prayer-Book; History of 
Christ Church. 

Herman Hooker, D. D., 1804-1857, was a native of Pultney, Vt., and a graduate of Mid- 
dlebury College. He studied divinity at Princeton, but afterwards took orders in the Epis- 
copal Church. Ill health obliging him to desist from preaching, he became a bookseller, in 
Philadelphia. He wrote several works, which were well received : The Portion of the Soul; 
Popular Infidelity ; Family Book of Devotion ; The Uses of Adversity ; Thoughts and Max- 
ims ; The Christian Life a Fight of Faith. " We meet at times in Dr. Hooker's writings with 
phrases of the rarest felicity, and of great delicacy and expressiveness ; in which we know 
not whether most to admire the vigor which has conceived so striking a thought, or the re- 
finement of art which has fixed it in words so beautifully exact." — Griswold. 

Hugh Davy Evans, LL. D., 1792-1868, an eminent lawyer of Baltimore, besides several law 
books, wrote Essays to Prove the Validity of Anglican Ordination ; Essay on the Episcopate 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. 

Samuel Farmer Jarvis, D. D., LL.D., 1787-1851, was a native of Middletown, Conn., and 
a graduate of Yale. He was a divine of the Episcopal Church, and was held in high estima- 
tion for his learning and abilities. He was rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston, and of several 
other parishes ; was Professor of Biblical Criticism in the several Theological Seminaries in 
New York, and of Oriental Literature in Trinity College, Hartford; and was appointed in 
1838 Historiographer of the Church by the General Convention. The following are his prin- 
cipal publications : The Church of the Redeemed, 2 vols., 8vo ; A New Inquiry into the True 
Dates of the Birth and Death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; Reply to Dr. Milner's 
End of Controversy ; On the Religion of the Indian Tribes of North America, etc 



III 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 295 

■William Dexter Wilson, D.D., LL. D., 1816 ^, was born ia Stoddard, N. II.; studied 

theology at Cambridge ; entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church in 1812. He was Pro- 
fessor of Logic, etc., ia Hobart College, Geneva. He has published The Constitution of a 
Christian Church derived from Holy Scripture; Manual of Church Principles; History of 
the Reformation in England ; The Church Identified, etc. 

WiLLi.vM Berri.vn, D. D., 1862, a graduate of Columbia College, of the class of 1828, 

and an Episcopal clergyman, rector of Trinity Church, New York, was the author of several vol- 
umes, mostly devotional: Devotions for the Sick Room; Enter Thy Closet; Family and Pri- 
vate Prayers; On the Communion; Sailors' Manual; Recollections of Departed Friends; 
Historical Sketch of Trinity Church ; Travels in France and Italy ; Dr. Berrian edited also 
the works of Bishop Hobart. 

Dr. Turner. 

SAMUEii H. Turner, D. D., 1790-1861, is by general consent the ablest 
Biblical commentator in the Episcopal Church in the United States. His 
writings on subjects connected with his department are numerous, but those 
which have the greatest permanent value are his Commentaries on Ko- 
mans, Hebrews, Ephesians, and Galatians. 

Dr. Turner was born in Philadelphia, and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, 
in the class of 1S07. He became a Professor in the General Theological Seminary of the Epis- 
copal Church, in New York, in 1818, and contined in that office until his death, a period of 
forty-three years. His department was that of Biblical Learning and Interpretation of Scrip- 
ture. He was also at the same time Professor of Hebrew in Columbia College. His publi- 
cations are the following : Commentaries, analytical and exegetical, on Romans, Hebrews, 
Ephesians, and Galatians ; The Origin, Character, and Interpretation of Prophecy ; The 
Claims of the Hebrew Language and Literature ; Essay on our Lord's Disctiurse at Caper- 
naum, containing strictures on Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on the Real Presence; Teach- 
ings of the Master ; Comparing Spiritual ITiings with Spiritual ; Companion to the Book of 
Genesis; Autobiography of Rev. Samuel II. Turner. Dr. Turner also, with Bishop Whitting- 
ham, translated Jahn's Introduction to the Old Testament, and Planck's Introduction to 
Sacred Philosophy and Interpretation. 

"Dr. Turner stands by common consent at the head of the expositors of Scripture in the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. In the range of accuracy of his Biblical learning he has no 
equals in that church ; and few in other churches take higher rank." — Am. Theol. Review 
(Presbyterian). 

" We have more than once expressed our high sense of Professor Turner's merits as a 
Biblical critic. We can hardly conceive of a nicer mutual equilibrium than exists in his 
mind between reverence and learning, faith and freedom, loyalty to the voice of revelation 
and fearless inquiry as to what that voice utters and means." — N. Am. Review, Dr. A. P. 
Peabody, (Unitarian.) 

Samuel Seaburt, D. D., 1801 , a well-known Episcopal divine of New York city, grand- 
son of Bishop Scabury of Connecticut, was Professor of Languages in Fluslilng Institute 
from 1830 to 1834; Editor of the Churchman from 1834 to 1849; afterwards Rector of 
the Church of the Annunciation, New York; and since 1863 successor to Dr. Turner in the 
chair of Biblical Interpretation in the General Theological Seminary. Dr. Seabury has pulw 
lished The Continuity of the Church of England in the Sixteenth Century ; Discourses on 
the Supremacy and Obligation of Conscience; American Slavery Distinguislied from the 
Slavery of English Theorists ; Mary the Virgin, as Commemorated in the Church of Christ, etc. 



296 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Way land. 

Fkancis Wayi^aio), D. D., LL. D., 1796-1865, long the honored Presi- 
dent of Brown University, was in his day the most distinguished Baptist 
divine in the United States. His three principal works, Moral Science, 
Intellectual Philosophy, and Political Economy, have heen used extensively 
as text-hooks. The author was a man of enlarged views, and had a na- 
tional reputation. His opinions carried great weight outside, as well as 
within, his own church. 

Dr. Wayland was born in the city of New York, of English parentage. He graduated at 
Union College, in the class of 1813 ; studied medicine for three years ; then studied theology 
at Andover. He was Tutor, and afterwards Professor, in Union College ; Pastor of the First 
Baptist Church in Boston ; and President of Brown University from 1827 to 1855. His 
presidency was marked by many wise measures of administration, and contributed to the 
rapid growth and extension of the institution. 

Dr. Wayland's chief publications are the following: Elements of Moral Science; Elements 
of Intellectual Philosophy ; Elements of Political Economy ; The Moral Dignity of the 
Missionary Enterprise ; The Limitations of Human Responsibility ; Moi-al Law of Accumu- 
lation ; Thoughts on the Collegiate System of the United States ; Report to the Corporation 
of Brown University on the Changes in the System of Collegiate Education ; The Principles 
and Practices of Baptist Churches ; Life of Dr. Judson. 

Baron Stow, D.D., 1801-1869, was born in Croydon, N. Y., and graduated at Columbia 
College, D. C, in the class of 1825. He was for a long time pastor of the Rowe Street Bap- 
tist Chnrch, Boston. He published A History of the Bai)tlst Mission to India ; A History 
of the Danish Mission on the Coast of Coromandel ; A Memoir of Harriet Dow ; The "Whole 
Family in Heaven and Earth ; Christian Brotherhood ; Missionary Enterprise, etc. 

Howard Malcom, D. D., 1799 , a Baptist divine of great eminence, was born in Phil- 
adelphia. After a pastorate of five years at Hudson, N. Y., he entered in 1825 the service 
of the American Sunday-School Union, and travelled over a large part of the country, advo- 
cating the claims of that institution. In 1827, he was settled over a church in Boston. In 
1835, he was sent on a visit of inspection to the Baptist Missions in India, Burmah, Siam, 
China, etc. He became President of Georgetown College, Ky., in 1839, and of the Lewisburg 
University in 1851. The following are his principal publications : The Nature and Extent 
of the Atonement; The Christian Rule of Marriage; Travels in South-Eastern Asia; and 
Bible Dictionary. 

E. L. Magoon, D. D., , a preacher of note in the Baptist Church, has published 

the following works : Republican Christianity; Proverbs for the People; The Living Ora- 
tors in America; The Orators of the American Revolution ; Westward Empire, or the Great 
Drama of Human Progress, etc. 

John Gregory Pike, , a Baptist clergyman, has written a number of excellent 

popular treatises: Persuasions to Early Piety; Consolations of Gospel Truth; Divine Origin 
of Christianity ; Guide for Young Disciples ; Religion and Eternal Life ; Emanuel the Chris- 
tian's Joy, etc. 

"William Hague, D. D., 1805 , a minister in the Baptist Church, was born in New York. 

He has preached in Boston, Providence, Newark, N, J., AILauy, New York, and Chicago. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 297 

He has written the following works, chiefly of a religious character : The Baptist Church 
Transplanted from the Old World to the New ; Guide to Conversation on the Gospel of Jolm ; 
Review of Drs. Fuller and Wayland on Slavery; Christianity and Statesmanship; Home 
Life, a series of lectures on the duties and relations of the Family Circle. 

Rev. Joseph S. C. F. Fret, 1771-1850, was born of Jewish parents, but was converted to 
Christianity at the age of tweuty-five. He came to the United States in 1816, and wa.s for 
some time a Presbyterian minister, and afterwards a Baptist. He labored both in England 
and in the United States, as a missionary to the Jews, and wrote several books, having this 
subject in view : Joseph and Benjamin, or the difference between Jews and Christians ; Judah 
and Israel, or the Restoration of Christianity ; Lectures on the Scripture Types ; The Pass- 
over, etc. 

John Overton Choules, D, D., 1801-1856, a Baptist minister and writer of celebrity, was 
born in England, but in 1854 settled in America. Among his works are: History of Mis- 
sions, 2 vols. ; Christian Offering ; Young Americans Abroad ; Cruise of Steam Yacht North 
Star. He edited NeaFs History of the Puritans ; Forbes's Lives of the Statesmen of the 
Commonwealth, etc. 



Dr. Chase. 

Ira Chase, D. D., 1793-1864, may be considered the father of theologi- 
cal education among the Baptists in the United States. He wrote several 
valuable works, but the great work of his life was his founding the Theo- 
logical Institution, at Newton, Mass. 

Dr. Chase was born at Stratton, Vt, His first impulse to a literary life came from a little 
book that his mother put into his hands, Mason's "Self-Knowledge." He graduated at 
Middlebury College, which he entered at an advanced standing, in 1812. There he was asso- 
ciated with Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, who were afterwards missionaries in Palestine. He 
studied theology at Andover, completing his course there in 1817. 

While at Andover he became strongly impressed with the need in his own branch of the 
church, the Baptist, of a distinct institution for theological education, and to found such an 
institution became thenceforward the controlling purpose of his life. "While pondering this 
subject, he was invited to Philadelphia, in 1818, to be associated with the venerable Dr. 
Stoughton in educating young men for the ministry. Dr. Stoughton and Prof. Chase ac- 
cordingly drew up a plan of study, and a Theological School was opened, the first of its kind 
by the Baptists in the United States. 

In 1822, the school was transferred to Washington, D. C, and made a part of the Colum- 
bian College. Prof. Chase labored there three years, but finding that the theological depart- 
ment of the College did not attain that distinct development which he desired, he resigned 
the professorship in 1825, and looked elscwliere for the realization of his hopes. The im- 
portiiut Theological Institution, at Newton, Mass., was the result. It was opened in Novem- 
ber, 1825, and Dr. Chase was its first Professor. He labored there for the next twenty years, 
until 1845, when he retired from active duty. 

Dr. Chase's publications are The Life of Bunyan; Infant Baptism an Invention of Men; 
The Design of Baptism, in its Relation to the Christian Life; The Constitutions of the Holy 
Apostles ; and a largo number of Tracts, Sermons, Essays in the Bibliotheca Sacra, etc. 

John Newton Brown, D. D., , a Baptist clergyman and author, was born at New 

London, Conn., and graduated at what is now Madison University, at Hamilton, N. Y. He 



298 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

was for a time Professor in the New Hampshire Theological Institution, New Hampshire, 
then pastor of a church in Lexington, Va. His later years were spent in the service of the 
American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia. He published the following works: 
Baptist Church Manual ; Baptismal Balance; Life and Times of Menno; Obligation of the 
Sabbath ; Encyclopjedia of Religious Knowledge ; Apocalypse, a Poem ; Emily and Other 
Poems. He edited the Practical Works of John Buayau, 8 vols. 

Joseph Belcher, D. D., 1794-1859, a Baptist minister, was born in England, but was long 
a resident of the United States. His publications were numerous and valuable, but not of 
the highest order of literary excellence. The following are the chief: Poetical Sketches 
of Biblical Subjects ; Scripture Narratives ; Pastoral Recollections; The Clergy of America; 
The Baptist Pulpit of the United States ; Religious Denominations of the United States ; 
Married Life ; Live Joyfully ; George Whitefield, a Biography. He edited also the Complete 
Works of Andrew Fuller and Robert Hall. 



Dr. Durbin. 

John P. Durbln, D. D., 1800 , has a leading position among the 

divines of the Methodist Church. 

Dr. Durbin was born in Bourbon County, Ky., and graduated at Cincinnati College, 
in 1825. He was Professor of Languages in Augusta College, Kentucky ; Chaplain of the 
United States Senate in 1831; Professor of Natural Sciences in Wesleyan University in 1832; 
Editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal in 1833 ; President of Dickinson College from 
1834 to 1843. He then travelled two years in Europe, and on his return was stationed as 
presiding elder in Philadelphia. In 1850 he was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the 
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

His publications, in book form, are : Observations in Europe, 2 vols. ; Observations in 
Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor, 2 vols., etc. 

Stephen Olin, D.D., LL. D., 1797-1851, a Methodist divine, President of Randolph Macon 
College, Ya., and afterwards of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., was a native 
of Leicester, Vt., and a graduate of Middlebury College. He published Travels in Egypt, 
Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land; Travels in Greece and Turkey; and two volumes of 
Sermons, Addresses, etc. 

Henry Bidleman Bascom, D. D,, LL. D., 1796-1850, a distinguished Methodist preacher and 
bishop, M'as a native of New York State, but labored mostly in the West and Southwest. 
He was more distinguished for his pulpit oratory than for his literary efforts. His Works 
have been published in 4 vols. They consist of Sermons from the Pulpit, Lectures on Infi- 
delity, Lectures and Essays on Moral and Mental Science, Sermons and Sketches. 

Rev. Le Rot Sunderland, 1804 , was born at Exeter, R. I. ; became a Methodist 

preacher in 1823. He has written numerous books and painplilets, mostly on Slavery, Mor- 
monism, and Spiritualism. Testimony of God against Slavery ; Anti-Slavery Manual ; Mor- 
monism Exposed; Anti-Mormon Almanac; Pathetism, with Practical Instructions; Pathe- 
tism, a Statement of its Philosophy, and its Discovery Defended; Pathetism, Man considered 
in reference to his Soul, Mind, Spirit ; The Spirit-World ; Book of Psychology ; The Trance 
and How Introduced ; Manual of Self- Healing, by Nutrition without Medicine, etc. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 299 

Dr. Raphall. 

Morris Jacob Raphall, Ph. D., 1798-1868, a Jewish clergyman of 
New York city, was greatly distinguished for his learning and eloquence. 
His publications till many volumes. 

Dr. Raphall was born at Stockholm. Early in life he showed talents of a high order, and 
being designed for the ministry, he was furnished by his parents with the best opportunities 
for a liberal education. He was sent first to the Jewish College at Copenhagen, where he 
gained distinction at the age of thirteen. At the age of fourteen he went to England to 
perfect himself in the English, of which language he acquired a complete mastery. In 1818 
-20, he made the tour of Europe ; in 1821, at the age of twenty-three, he entered the Uni- 
versity of Giessen, where he remained four years. In 1825, he returned to England, and 
made his residence there until 1849, when he came to the United States. 

Dr. Raphall resided in New York from 1849 to the time of his death, in 1868, and was held 
in high estimation by all classes of people. Christian as well as Jewish. 

Tlie following are his principal publications : Post-Biblical History of the Jews ; Path to 
Immortality; Bible Views of Slavery; Judaism Defended; Devotional Exercises for the 
Daughters of Israel ; The Festivals of the Lord, as Celebrated by the House of Israel ; The 
Literature of the Jews in Spain ; The Social Condition of the Jews. Dr. Raphall also trans- 
lated many works : Eight Chapters on Ethics from the Hebrew of Maimonides ; Book of 
Principles, from the Hebrew of Rabbi Joseph Albo ; History of Sects among the Jews, from 
the German of P. Beer ; Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews, from the French 
of D. Rosenberg, etc. Dr. Raphall began likewise a New Translation of the Hebrew Bible, 
with Notes Critical and Explanatory, but finished Genesis only. He was acceptable as a 
popular lecturer, and contributed much to periodical literature. 

Rev. Isaac Leeser, 1806-1868, a Jewish preacher settled for a long time in Philadelphia, 
was born in "Westphalia. He came to the United States in 1824, and resided for the first 
five years in Richmond, Va. In 1829 he settled in Philadelphia. He was a man of learning, 
and wrote a good deal. Instructions in the Mosaic Religion ; The Jews and the Mosaic 
Law ; Discourses, Argumentative, on the Jewish Religion ; Hebrew Spelling and Reading 
Book; Translation of the Holy Scriptures from the Original Hebrew. Mr. Leeser published 
also a monthly magazine, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate. 

Hosea Ballou. 

Rev. Hosea Ballou, 1771-1852, was the founder of Universalism in 
the United States, and a man of great eminence as a preacher and a con- 
troversialist. 

Mr. Ballou was a native of New Hampshire, but spent the greater part of his public life 
in Boston. His publications are very numerous, and would make, it is supposed, not less 
than one hundred 12mo vols. The most important is An Examination of the Doctrine of 
Future Retribution. Some of the others are : Notes on the Parables ; Treatise on the Atone- 
ment; Authenticity of the Scriptures; Candid Review. In 1819, he began The Universalist 
Magazine, the first weekly paper devoted to the dissemination of Universalist doctrines in 
the United States. In 1831, in connection with his nephew, also Hosea Ballou, ho begun 
the Universalist Expositor, changed afterwards to the Universalist Quarterly Review, and 

Btill continued. — Maturin M. Bali.ou, 1822 , son of Rev. Hosea B., is the author of: 

History of Cuba ; Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou ; and Life-Story of Ilosca Ballou, a juvenile 
work; also, Editor and proprietor of Ballou's Pictorial. — Hosea Ballou, D.D., 1796-1861, 



300 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

a nephew of the Hosea Ballon just named, -was bom at Halifax, Vt. After preaching at 
Roxbury and Medford, Mass., and at Stafford, Conn., he became, in 1855, President of Tuft's 
College, Somerville, Mass., an institution which he had helped largely to found. He was 
associated with the older Ballou in the management of the TTniversalist Magazine. He 
■wrote also Ancient History of Uni^ersalism, and edited Sismondi's History of the Crusades, 
— Moszs Ballou, 1811 . another nephew of Rev. Hosea Ballou, was the author of Me- 
morial of Sanford; and The Divine Character Tindicated, a reply to Beecher's Conflict of the 
Ages ; a contributor also to the TJniversalist Review. 

Thomas TVhittemore, D.D., 1800-1861, a TJniversalist preacher of prominent standing, was 
born in Boston. After some experience in two or three different trades, he became at the 
age of twenty a Universalist preacher. He was subsequently a member of the Legislature, 
President of the Cambridge Bank, and President of the Termont and Massachusetts Rail- 
road. He wrote Modern History of Universalism ; Plain Guide to IJniversali^m ; Notes on 
the Parables ; Gospel Harmonist ; A Commentary on Revelation ; A Commentary on Daniel ; 
Life of Walter Balfour and Hosea Ballou ; Autobiography. 



Alexander Campbell. 

Rev. Alexander Cajipbell, 1788-1855, is well known as a religious 
reformer, and as the founder of a large and influential religiou.s society, who 
are sometimes called Campbellites, but who usually call themselves Disciples 
of Christ. He was a man of extraordinary intellectual activity, and the 
amount of labor which he performed during the forty-five years of his min- 
istry borders on the marvellous. His writings fill nearly sixty volumes, and 
yet they were but a part, and that not the largest part, of his work. His 
chief power was in unwritten discourse, and the greater part of his incessant 
activity was exercised as a speaker. He excelled especially in debate, and 
he had a particular fondness for that method of propagating truth. As a 
public disputant on religious topics, he has probably never had his superior. 

Mr. Campbell was born in the county of Antrim, in Ireland. His father, Thomas Camp- 
bell, was a minister of the Secession Church, in Ireland, and emigrated to America in 1807, 
and settled in "Washington County, in Western Pennsylvania. Alexander with the rest of 
the family followed in 1S09, he being then twenty-one years of age. He had been educated 
mainly by his father, and after the departure of the latter for America had studied for a 
year at Glasgow University. 

While in Ghisgow, he became acquainted with the views of the Haldanes, and began to 
entertain doubts of the correctness of the religious system in which he had been educated. 
On reaching Pennsylvania, he found that his father had undergone a similar change of 
views. They accordingly withdrew from the Scceders the same year, 1809, publishing a 
declaration of their reasons, and forming articles of Association for those who united with 
them. 

Alexander began preaching in 1810, and from this time to the time of his death, he devoted 
his energies unintermittingly and exclusively to the new religious movement. After labor- 
ing for several years in Washington County, he established himself in Bethany, not far from 
Wheeling, in West Virginia. Bethany became thenceforth the centre of his operation?, 
though much of his time was spent in travelling through the Western and South-western 
States, preaching his doctrines, and meeting opponents in public debate. 

His first encounter of this kind was in 1820, at Mount Pleasant, 0., with the Rev. John 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 301 

Walker, of the Secession Church, the question being that of Infant Baptism. The debate 
lasted several days. The report of it was printed in a volume, and two or three editionii of 
it were sold. 

The effect of the publication of this volume led Mr. Campbell to reflect upon the import- 
ance of employing the press in the dissemination of his opinions. He accordingly set up a 
printing-press at his house, and began in 1823 the publication of a monthly magazine, The 
Christian Baptist, nearly all of it written by himself. The magazine was changed in 1S30 
to the Millennial Harbinger, and under this name was continued by him until 1863, in all 
41 vols. The amount of writing which he did for these periodicals seems almost incredible. 

Mr. Campbell's subsequent great debates were with the Rev. William L. McCalla, of the 
Presbyterian Church, Kentucky, 1823; with Robert Owen the infidel, Cincinnati, 1829; 
with Bishop Purcell, of the Catholic Church, Cincinnati, 1837; and witli N. L. Rice, D.D., 
Presbyterian, Lexington, Ky., 1S42. Each of these debates was reported in full, forming a 
large volume. 

Besides his Debates, and his writings in the magazine, Mr. Campbell at different times 
wrote the following: The Christian System or Christianity Restored; Christian Preacher's 
Companion, or Infidelity refuted by Infidels ; Christian Baptism, its Antecedents and Conse- 
quences ; Popular Lectures and Addresses ; The New Testament, a new version, with notes ; 
Christian Ilymn-Book ; Life of Thomas Campbell. 

Among his other works, Mr. Campbell established, in 1841, Bethany College, at Bethany, 
W. Ya., and was its first President. A very interesting Life of Mr. Campbell, in 2 vols., Svo, 
has been written by his associate and successor in Bethany College, Prof. Robert Richardson, 

The following description of Mr. Campbell's manner and appearance in the pulpit is from 
a letter by the Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D., published in the New York Observer. 

"At length Dr. Campbell made his way up through the crowd and took his seat in the 
pulpit. He is somewhat above the middle stature, with broad shoulders, a little stooping, 
and, though stoutly built, a little spare and pale. He has a high, intellectual forehead, a 
keen, dark eye, somewhat shaded, and a well-covered head of gray hair, fast changing into 
the full bloom of the almond-tree. I think he must be rather over than under sixty-five 
years of age. He looks like a hard-working man, as he has been from his youth up. Yery 
few could have endured so much mental and physical labor as has raised him to the com- 
manding situation which he now occupies, and so long sustained him in it. His voice is not 
strong, evidently owing, in part, to the indifferent state of his health, but it is clear and 
firmlj' modulated. His enunciation is distinct, and, as he uses no notes, his language is re- 
markably pure and select. In his delivery, he has not much action, and but little of that 
fervid outpouring which characterizes Western and Southern eloquence. There is nothing 
vociferous or impassioned in his manner. I think he is the most perfectly self-possessed, 
the most perfectly at ease in the pulpit, of any preacher I ever listened to, except, perhaps, 
the celebrated Dr. John Mason of New York. No gentleman could be more free and unem- 
barrassed in his own parlor. At the same time there is not the slightest apparent want of 
deference for his audience. 

" In laying out his work, his statements are simple, clear, and concise, his topics are well 
and logically arranged, his manner is calm and deliberate, but full of assurance. His ap- 
peals arc not very earnest nor indicative of deep feeling; but nevertheless winning and im- 
pressive in a high degree. There were many fine and truly eloquent passages in the two 
discourses I heard, but they seemed to cost him no effort, and to betray no consciousness on 
his part that they were fine. In listening to him you feel that you are in the presence of a 
great man. He speaks like a 'master of assemblies,' who has entire confidence in the 
mastery of his subject and his powers, and who expects to carry conviction to the minds of 
his hearers without any of those adventitious aids on which ordinary men find it necessary 
to rely. On both evenings when I heard him he held the great congregation for one hour 
and a half in that profound stillneae which shows that his listeuora are not aware of the 
lapse of time." 

26 



302 AMERICAN LITERATUKE. 

"Alexander Campbell is unquestionably one of the most extraordinary men of our time. 
Putting wholly out of view his tenets, with which we of course have nothing to do, he 
claims, by virtue of his intrinsic qualities, as manifested in his achievements, a place among 
the very foremost spirits of the age. His energy, self-reliance, and self-JidelUy, if we may 
use the expression, are of the stamp that belongs only to the world's first leaders in thought 
or action. His personal excellence is certainly without a stain or a shadow. His intellect, 
it is scarcely too much to say, is among the clearest, richest, profoundest, ever vouchsafed 
to man. Indeed, it seems to us that in the faculty of abstract thinking — in, so to say, the 
sphere of pure thought — he has few, if any, living rivals. Every cultivated person of the 
slightest metaphysical turn who has heard Alexander Campbell in the pulpit or in the social 
circle, must have been especially impressed by the wonderful facility with which his facul- 
ties move in the highest planes of thought. Ultimate facts stand forth as boldly in his con- 
sciousness as sensations do in that of most other men. He grasps and handles the highest, 
subtlest, most comprehensive principles as if they were the liveliest impressions of the 
senses. No poet's soul is more crowded with imagery than his is with the ripest forms of 
thought. Surelj' the life of a man thus excellent and gifted, is a part of the common treas- 
ure of society. In his essential character, he belongs to no sect or party, but to the world." 
— George D. Prentice, in the Louisville Journal. 

VIII. MISCELLANEOUS 'WRITERS. 

Mrs. Sigourney. 

Mks. Lydia H. Sigoueney, 1791-1865, won her way to a distinguislied 
position in letters, not by any one special and extraordinary work of genius, 
but by persistent and long continued labor, moderate in tone and useful in 
their tendency. Her indefatigable pen sent forth one volume a year, on an 
average, for half a century, her first volume. Moral Pieces in Prose and 
Verse, bearing date 1815, and her fiftieth. Letters of Life, a sort of auto- 
biography, being ready for publication at the time of her death, in 1865. 

La all this long career of authorship there was nothing to startle or elec- 
trify the public mind. Her writings were more like the dew than the 
lightning. Yet the dew, it is well to remember, is not only one of the most 
beneficent, but also one of the most powerful, of nature's agents, — far more 
potential in grand results than its brilliant rival. When count shall be 
made of the various agencies, moral and intellectual, which moulded the 
American mind and heart during the first half of the nineteenth century, 
few names will be honored with a larger credit than that of Lydia H. 
Sigourney. 

The maiden name of this lady was Lydia Howard Huntly. She was a native of Norwich, 
Conn. Being an only child, she was nurtured with special care and tenderness. At the ago 
of nineteen, in company with an intimate friend, Anna Maria Hyde, she established a school 
for young ladies at Norwich. Two years later, she removed to Hartford to pursue the same 
occupation in that city. There, in 1819, at the age of twenty-eight, she was married to Mr. 
Charles Sigourney, a merchant of Hartford, and she continued to make that city her home 
until her death in 1865. 

Mrs. Sigourney's career is an instance, if any were needed, to prove that a woman may 
be true to all her womanly instincts and duties, and yet do worthy service in the field of 
letters. That she was able to accomplish so much was due to her habits of system and order, 
and her diligent use of the passing hour. She was famous among her neighbors for domestic 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 303 

thrift, and for active co-operation with her sex in deeds of social benevolence, yet always 
ready for an engagement with a publisher, and punctual to a day in whatever literary task 
she undertook. 

A paramount sense of duty seemed to be the obvious spring of Mrs. Sigourney's writings, 
as of her conduct. If it did not lead her to the highest regions of fancy, it saved her from 
the disgraceful falls which too often mark the track of genius. Few, who have written so 
much, have written so little to cause regret in the review. Along the calm, sequestered 
vale of duty and usefulness, her writings, like a river fresh from its mountain springs, 
gladdened many a quiet home, stimulated into activity many a generous heart. 

Some of Mrs. Sigourney's small volumes, like the Whisper to a Bride, unpretending in 
character, as in appearance, yet contain a wealth of beauty and goodness that few would 
believe who have not examined them. Other larger volumes, none are more widely known 
than Letters to Young Ladies, Letters to Mothers, and Letters to My Pupils. Past Meridian, 
written when the shadows of life began to fall about her, in the calm and cheerful serenity 
of its spirit, and the wisdom of its counsels, reminds the reader of Cicero's famous essay on 
Old Age. 

Mrs. Sigourney has been generally quoted as a poet. Her true position is that of a prose 
writer. Of the vast number of verses which she wrote, it is doubtful whether any even 
now are remembered, except one, Lines on the Death of an Infant. 

DEATH OF AN INFANT. 
Death found strange beauty on that polished brow, 
And dashed it out. There was a tint of rose 
On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice, 
And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes 
There spake a wistful teuderness, a doubt 
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence 
Alone may wear. "With ruthless haste he bound 
The silken fringes of those curtained lids 
Forever. There had been a murmuring sound 
With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, 
Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set 
The seal of silence. But there beamed a smile, 
So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow, 
Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal 
The signet-ring of heaven. 

SKETCH OF A FAMILY. 

It is the duty of mothers to sustain the reverses of fortune. Frequent and sudden as they 
have been in our own country, it is important that young females should possess some em- 
ployment by which they might obtain a livelihood in case they should be reduced to the 
necessity of supporting themselves. When females arc suddenly reduced from affluence to 
poverty, how pitiful and contemptible it is to see the mother desponding and helpless, and 
permitting her daughters to embarrass those whom it is their duty to assist and cheer. 

"I have lost my whole fortune," said a merchant, as he returned one evening to his 
home; "we can no longer keep our carriage. We must leave this large house. Tlio cliil- 
dren can no longer go to expensive schools. Yesterday I was a rich man ; to-day tliere is 
nothing I can call my own." 

" Dear husband," said the wife, " we are still rich in each other and our children. Money 
may pass away, but God has given us a better treasure in these active hands and loving 
hearts." 

"Dear father," said the children, "do not look so sober. We will help you to got a 
living." 



304 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" What can you do, poor things? " said he. 

"You shall see ! you shall see ! " answered several voices. " It is a pity if we have been 
to school for nothing. How can the father of eight children be poor? "VYe shall work and 
make you rich again." 

" I shall help," said a little girl, hardly four years old. " I shall not have any new things 
bought, and I shall sell my great doll." 

The heart of the husband and father, which had sunk within his bosom like a stone, was 
lifted up. The sweet enthusiasm of the scene cheered him, and his nightly prayer was like 
a song of praise. 

They left their stately house. The servants were dismissed. Pictures and plate, rich 
carpets and furniture, were sold, and she who had been mistress of the mansion shed no tears. 

" Pay every debt," said she ; " let no one suffer through us, and we may be happy." 

He rented a neat cottage and a small piece of ground a few miles from the city. With the 
aid of his sons he cultivated vegetables for the market. He viewed with delight and aston- 
ishment the economy of his wife, nurtured as she had been in wealth, and the efl^cienpy 
which his daughters soon acquired under her ti-aining. 

The eldest assisted in the household, and also instructed the young children ; besides, they 
executed various works which they had learned as accomplishments, but which they found 
could be disposed of to advantage. They embroidered with taste some of the ornamental 
parts of female apparel which were readily sold to a merchant in the city. 

They cultivated flowers, and sent bouquets to market in the cart that conveyed the vegeta- 
bles ; they plaited straw, they painted maps, they executed plain needle-work. Every one 
was at her post, busy and cheerful. The little cottage vras like a beehive. 

" I never enjoyed such health before," said the father. 

" And I never was so happy before," said the mother. 

" We never knew how many things we could do when we lived in the grand house," said 
the children; "and we love each other a great deal better here. You call us your little 
bees." 

" Yes," said the father; " and you make just such honey as the heart likes to feed on." 

Economy, as well as industry, was strictly observed ; nothing was wasted. Nothing 
unnecessary was purchased. The eldest daughter became assistant teacher in a distinguished 
seminary, and the second took her place as instructress to the family. 

The dwelling, which had always been kept neat, they were soon able to beautify. Its 
construction was improved, and the vines and flowering trees were replanted around it. 
The merchant was happier under his woodbine-covered porch in a summer's evening, than 
he had been in his showy dressing-room. 

"We are now thriving and prosperous," said he; "shall we return to the city? " 

"Oh, no ! " was the unanimous reply. 

" Let us remain," said the wife, "where we have found health and contentment." 

" Father," said the youngest, " all we children hope you are not going to be rich again ; 
for then," she added, " we little ones were shut up iu the nursery, and did not see much of 
you or mother. Now we all live together, and sister, who loves us, teaches us, and we learn 
to be industrious and useful. We were none of us happy when we were rich and did not 
work. So, father, please not to be rich any more." 



Mrs. Willard. 

Mrs. Emma C. Willard, 1787-1870, is more known as a woman of 
action than as an author. She devoted the greater part of a long and 
most useful life to the education of women, in which lier efforts, both as a 
theorist and as a practical teacher, were crowned with signal success. Her 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 305 

prominence as a writer, however, does not by any means correspond to 
that assigned to her by common consent as an educator. Still, she found 
time, in the midst of other duties of a most urgent character, to make sev- 
eral valuable contributions to the cause of letters. 

Mrs. "Willard was the daughter of the late Samuel ITart, of Berlin, Conn., where she was born 
in February, 1787. Her father was descended, on the maternal side, from Thomas Hooker, min- 
ister, and on the paternal side, from Stephen Hart, deacon, of the original church in Hart- 
ford, Conn. Minister Hooker and Deacon Hart were among that large company of emigrants 
who came over in 1630, and settled the town of Cambridge, Mass. In 1635, five years after 
the settlement of Cambridge, a fresh colony swarmed from the parent hive, including the 
" minister" and the "deacon "just named, and settled the town of Hartford. 

The love of teaching appears to have been a ruling passion in Miss Hart's mind, and was 
developed in her early years. At the age of sixteen she took charge of a district school in 
her native town. The following year she opened a select school, and in the summer of the 
next year was placed at the head of the Berlin Academy. 

During the spring of 1807, Miss Hart received invitations to take charge of academies in 
three different States, and accepted that from Westfield, Mass. She remained there but a 
few weeks, when, upon a second and more pressing invitation, she went to Middlebury in 
Vermont. Here she assumed the charge of an academy for young women, which she re- 
tained for two years. The school was liberally patronized, and general satisfaction rewarded 
the efforts of its preceptress. In 1809, she resigned her academy, and was united in marriage 
withDr. John "SYil lard. 

In 1814, Mrs. "STillard was induced to establish a boarding-school at Middlebury, when she 
formed the determination to effect an important change in the education of women, by the 
institution of a class of schools of a higher character than had been established in the 
country before. She applied herself assiduously to increase her own personal abilities as a 
teacher by the diligent study of branches with which she had been unacquainted. She 
introduced new studies into her school, and invented new methods of teaching. She also 
prepared An Address to the Public, in which she proposed A Plan for Improving Female 
Education. 

A copy of this Plan was sent to Gov. DeWitt Clinton, who immediately wrote to Mrs. 
Willard, expressing a most cordial desire that she would remove her institution to the State 
of New York. He also recommended the subject of her "Plan " in his message to the Leg- 
islature. The result was the passage of an act to incorporate the proposed institute at 
Waterford ; and another to give to female academies a share of the literary fund ; being, it 
is believed, the first law ever passed by any Legislature with the direct object of improving 
female education. 

During the spring of 1819, Mrs. Willard removed to Waterford, and opened her school. 
The higher mathematics were introduced, and the course of study was made sufficiently 
complete to qualify the i)upil for any station in life. 

In the spring of 1821, difficulties attending the securing of a proper building for the school 
in Waterford, Mrs. Willard again determined upon a removal. The public-spirited citizens 
of Troy offered liberal inducements; and in May, IS-Jl, The Troy Female Seminary w:v3 
opened under flattering auspices ; and abundant success crowned her indefatigable exertions. 
Since that period, the institute has been well known to the public, and the name of Mrs. 
Willard, for more than half a century, has been identified with her favorite academy. 

Dr. Willard died in 1825; Mrs. Willard continued her school till her health was impaired, 
and in 1830 visited France. She resided in Paris for several months, and from thence went 
to England and Scotland, returning in the following year. After her return she published 
a volume of Travels, the avails of which, amounting to twelve hundred dollars, were devoted 
to the cause of female education in Greece. 

26* U 



306 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In 1838, Mrs. Willard resigned the charge of the Troy Seminary, and returned to Hartford. 
Her time after that, for several years, was occupied with the revision of her more important 
text-books. These were A History of the United States, Universal History, and Ancient 
Geography. She also wrote numerous addresses on different occasions, being mostly on 
education. 

In the winter of 1846, Mrs. Willard prepared for the press a work of a speculative chanic- 
ter, which attracted considerable attention, both abroad and at home. This work, which 
was published in the ensuing spring, both in New York and London, developed the results 
of a study which had intensely occupied her at times for fourteen years. Its title is " A 
Treatise on the Motive Powers which produce the Circulation of the Blood;" and its object 
was nothing less than to establish the fact, that the principal motive power which produces 
circulation of the blood is not, as has been heretofore supposed, the heart's action, that being 
only secondary; but that the principle motive power is respiration, operating by animal 
heat, and producing an effective force at the lungs. ^^ 

Some of her later works were two Chronographic Charts, oK^for American, and one for 
Universal History; History of the Mexican War, and of California; Morals for the Young; 
Astronography ; and Astronomy. 

Mrs. Willard published a small volume of Poems. 



Mrs. Phelps. 

Mks. Almtra Hart (Lincoln) Phelps, 1793 , sister of Mrs. Wil- 
lard, was like her prominently identified witk the first movements to raise 
the character of education for women, and like her too made valuable con- 
tributions to the literature of instruction. Her text-books on Botany, in 
particular, were for a long time the best in the market. 

Mrs. Phelps was born at Berlin, Conn., and was educated chiefly by her sister Emma. At 
the age of eighteen, she spent a year at the Seminary of Miss Hinsdale, at PittsOeld, Mass., 
and soon after was married to Simeon Lincoln, editor of the Connecticut Mirror, of Hartford. 

Mrs. Lincoln was left a widow at the age of thirty. Being thrown by this event upon her 
own resources, she begun preparing herself in the most thorough manner for what was 
henceforth to be her chosen oflSce, the education of the young. For this purpose she studied 
the Latin and Greek languages, and the natural sciences, applying herself at the same time 
to the cultivation of her talents for drawing and painting, and spent seven years in the Troy 
Seminary, engaged alternately in teaching and study. 

In 1831, she was married to Hon. John Phelps, of Vermont, and the next six years of her 
life were spent in that State. 

In 1839, she became Principal of a Female Seminary at West Chester, Pa. She subse- 
quently removed to EUicott's Mills, Md., to establish, in conjunction with her husband, the 
Patapsco Female Institute. Mr. Phelps died in 1849, and Mrs. Phelps was again left a widow. 

Mrs. Phelps's first publication was a work known as Lincoln's Botany, having been writ- 
ten while she was Mrs. Lincoln. It appeared in 1829, and had a large circulation. Tlie next 
work, a Dictionary of Chemistry, though mainly a translation from the French, contained 
much original matter. After her second marriage, she published Botany for Beginners, and 
Chemistry for Beginners, and a course of Lectures on Education. These lectures afterwards 
formed a volume of Harper's School Library, under the name of The Female Student. Her 
other principal works were Natural Philosophy for Schools ; Natural Philosophy for Begin- 
ners; Geology for Beginners ; Progressive Education (translated from the French); Caroline 
Westerly, or the Young Traveller; Ida Norman, or Trials and their Uses; A Mother's Jour- 
nal of her Child's Last Year; Christian Households; Hours with my Pupils; Whispers to a 



II 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 307 

Bride, etc. It is estimated that more than a million copies of Mrs. Phelps's books had been 
sold up to 1850. 

Her career, running through more than two generations, has been one of continued use- 
fulness, and is an honor to her country and her age. " No woman in America, nor any one 
in Europe, excepting Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Somerville, has made such useful and numerous 
contributions to the stock of available scientific knowledge as Mrs. Phelps." — 3Irs. Hale's 
Wainan's Record. 

Mrs. Eliza Ware Farkar, 1791-1870, was bom in Flanders, of parents who went from Nan- 
tucket to Europe, and who finally' settled in England. She was educated in England, and 
lived there until 1819. Her first book, Congo in Search of his Master, was written and first 
published in England. After coming to America, she was married to Prof. John W. Farrar, of 
Harvard University. She wrote the following works besides the one already named : The 
Children's Robinson Crusoe ; The Story of Lafayette ; The Life of Howard ; Youth's Letter- 
Writer; Young Lady's Friend. The book last named contains plain,homely advice to young 
ladies in regard to manners and decorum, and has been very popular. It contains no flights 
of fancy, or attempts at fine writing, but for sound practical sense, expressed in good Eng- 
lish, and in a style perfectly adapted to the subject, it is a work worthy of Hannah More, 
or of Maria Edgeworth. In her old age, she wrote also an interesting volume of reminis- 
cences, Recollection of Seventy Years. She died at Springfield, Mass. 



Mrs. Gilman. 

Mrs. Caroline (Howard) Oilman, 1794 , was very generally 

known to a preceding generation by her pleasant book, called Recollections 
of a Southern Matron. 

Mrs. Gilman was a native of Boston, and the wife of Dr. Samuel Gilman. She went with 
him to Charleston, S. C, in 1819, and has lived there ever since. Her first publications, 
which were poems, began as early as 1810. Among them, Jeptha's Rash Vow, and Jairus's 
Daughter, attracted particular attention. Her activity as a prose writer commenced with 
the Southern Rose Bud, a weekly juvenile paper, which she began in 1832, and continued for 
seven years. This miscellany contains a large amount of valuable literary matter, and is 
especially rich in contributions from Mrs. Gilman's own pen. Her other publications have 
been as follows : Recollections of a Southern Matron ; Recollections of a New England House- 
keeper; Ruth Raymond, or Love's Progress ; Poetry of Travelling ; Tales and Ballads ; Let- 
ters of Eliza Wilkinson ; Verses of a Lifetime ; The Oracles from the Poets ; The Sibyl, etc. 
The two books first named have had a large sale. 

Samuel Gilman, D. D., 1791-1858, was a native of Gloucester, Mass., and a graduate of Har- 
vard. He was a classmate of Edward Everett, and after graduation was for two years a 
tutor in the college. In 1819 he was settled in Charleston, S. C, as pastor of the Unitarian 
church there, and he remained in that position until his death. His publications are: Me- 
moirs of a New England Choir, much admired for its graphic and harmonious descriptions; 
Pleasures and Pains of a Student's Life ; The History of a Ray of Light; A Poem read be- 
fore the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard; Contributions to Literature, Critical, Humorous, Bio- 
graphical, Philosophical, and Poetical. Dr. Gilman was a contributor to the North American 
Review and the Christian Examiner. 

Madame Frances (Wright) D'Arcsmont, better known as Fanny Wright, 1796-1852, waa 
an atheistical Scotch woman, who camo to the United States in 1818, and again in 1820, and 
in 1825, and made herself notorious by delivering public lectures against moralsand religion. 



308 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

She published Views of Society and Manners in America ; A Few Days in Athens ; Altorf, a 
Tragedy. She was married afterwards to M. D'Arusmont, a Frenchman, and died in Cincin- 
nati. " She excited much comment, by her levelling doctrines and her extravagant lan- 
guage. But she had many followers and coadjutors, among them the still living Robert 
Dale Owen. The well-known Amos Gilbert Avrote a memoir of her in 1855, three yeavh after 
her death, entitled The Pioneer Woman, or the Cause of Woman's Rights. She was a person 
of immense energy and uncommon versatility. The list of her works is something unusual. 
She wrote a tragedy called Altorf, in 1819 ; Views of Society and Manners in America, which 
ran through four editions, and was translated into French, published in 1820, and repub- 
lished, with alterations and additions, in 1821 and 1822 ; A Few Days in Athens, being a 
translation of a Greek manuscript found in Herculaneum, and a defence of the Epicurean 
Philosophy, published in Loudon in 1822, and republished in Boston the same year. These 
were followed by a course of popular lectures, spoken in all the leading cities. North, West, 
and South, and printed for circulation and running through six editions. She was also the 
author, in company with Robert Dale Owen, of certain popular tracts, and in 1844 her biog- 
raphy was published in England, including her notes and politic-al letters. I shall always 
remember the effect produced by the lectures of this indefatigable and really gifted woman, 
as she travelled through Pennsylvania many years ago. Controverted and attacked by the 
clergy and the press, she maintained an undaunted front, and persevered to the last. That 
she was a woman of great mind is established by the number of her followers, including 
some of the best intellects of the country, and by the repeated publication and very general 
reading of her tracts and essays. It is related that when she came to her death-bed sho 
recanted the most of her free-love and socialistic theories." — John W. Forney, 

Mrs. Anne Rotall, 1769-1854, was a native of Virginia. In early life she was stolen by 
the Indians, and remained with them fifteen years. Her career altogether was a rough one, 
and the rude buffets which she had encountered seemed to have a hardening effect upon her 
temper. Unfortunately for the public, she learned, late in life, to read and write, and having 
written some books of little interest, she used them as a means of extortion. Washington 
city was the principal scene of her labors, and woe to the public man who did not buy what- 
ever she thrust at him. Besides a series of Black Books, she published a small paper, for 
the express purpose of defaming any one who would not submit to her extortion, and as 
Washington politicians are not immaculate, it was not difiRcult for a woman with a coarse 
temper and a sharp wit to make herself feared as well as disliked. Anne Royall was the 
special pest of Washington city thirty or forty years ago. As an example of the literary 
virago, she was probably without a parallel. 

" She was the terror of politicians, and especially of Congressmen. I can see her now 
tramping through the halls of the old Capitol, umbrella in hand, seizing upon every passer- 
by, and offering her book for sale. Any public man who refused to buy was certain of a 
severe philippic in her newspaper, the Washington Paul Pry, or in that which succeeded it. 
The Huntress. 'We have the famous Mrs. Royall hero,' writes Justice Story to Mrs. Story, 
on the 8th of Mai-ch, 1827, ' with her new novel. The Tennesseeans, which she has compelled 
the Chief Justice and myself to buy, to avoid a castigation. I shall bring it home for your 
edification.' She wrote and printed a great deal, but seemed to rely almost entirely upon 
her ability to blacken private character. Among her productions were Sketches of History, 
Life, and Manners in the United States, published in 182G ; the Black Book, published in 
1828, and continued in 1829 ; and her Southern Tour, the second series of the Black Book, 
which appeared in 1830-31 ; The Tennesseeans, a novel, and Letters from Alabama on various 
subjects in 1830. Iler newspapers were badly printed and badly written, and her squibs and 
stories more remarkable for bitterness than for wit. She was a woman of great industry 
and astonishing memory, but at last sho seemed to tire of a vocation which grew more and 
more unprofitable with better times and sweeter manners." — John W. Forney. 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 309 

Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham, 1815-1864, was a Miss Burhaus of Rensselaerville, N. Y. She was 
married in 1836 to Mr. Thomas J. Farnham. In 1844, she was appointed matron of the 
female department of the Sing Sing Prison. In 1S4S she was connectt'd witli the Institution 
for the Blind, in Boston. In 1849, she went with her husband to California, where slie re- 
mained until 1856. On returning to New York, she devoted herself for some years to organ- 
izing a society to aid emigrant women in going out West. She wrote several works, most 
of them connected with and illustrating her various projects for elevating the status of the 
commoner classes of her sex. The following works are named : Life in the Prairie Land ; 
California Indoor and Out ; My Early Days ; The Era of Women. 

Mrs. Hale, 

Mrs. Sarah Josepha Ha.l,e, 1790 -, like several other of the noble 

women mentioned in this section, is known all over the land by her life-long 
efforts to promote the intellectual elevation of her sex. Her work in this 
behalf has differed, however, from that of Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps, in 
that she has labored with her pen only. Besides numerous volumes of an 
attractive and useful kind, she has continued for forty-five years to cater 
monthly for the intellectual entertainment of her countrymen, through the 
columns of The Lady's Book and its predecessor The Ladies' Magazine. 
The high standard of domestic morals always observable in these magazines 
has undoubtedly done much towards preserving the purity of American 
homes, and for this service the public is largely indebted to the sound sense 
of Sarah Josepha Hale. 

Mrs. Hale is a native of Newport, N. H. Her maiden name was Buell. Her husband, 
David Hale, was a lawyer. By his death, she was left the sole protector of five children, the 
eldest then but seven years old. It was in the hope of gaining for them the means of sup. 
port and education, she engaged in authorship as a profession. 

Her first venture was a small volume of Poems, printed for her benefit by the Freemasons, 
of which fraternity her husband had been a member. This was followed by Northwood, a 
novel, in two volumes, published in 1827. 

In 1S28, she went to Boston to edit The Ladies' Magazine, the first American periodical 
devoted exclusively to her sex. She continued in this work until 1837, when the magazine 
was merged in The Lady's Book, and transferred to Philadelphia. She then removed to 
Philadelphia, and has lived there ever since, having charge of the literary department of the 
magazine. 

Her other publications have been the following: Flora's Interpreter; Sketches of Ameri- 
can Character; Traits of American Life; The Ladies' Wreath, a selection from the female 
poets of England and America; A Complete Dictionary of Poetical Quotations; The Opal ; 
The Good Housekeeper; Grosvenor, a tragedy; Alice of the Sea; Three Hours, or The Vigil 
of Love, and other Poems; Harry Guy, the Widow's Son, a romance of the sea; The Judge, 
a drama of American Life; Love, or Woman's Destiny, a poem. She has also edited the 
Letters of Madame S6vigne and Lady Montagu, and The Mother's Legacio to her Unborue 
Childe by Elizabeth Joceline. 

Mrs. Hale's greatest work of all remains to be mentioned. That is her Woman's Record, 
a large volume of 918 pages, royal 8vo, containing biographical sketches of all distinguished 
women from the earliest times down to the year 1868, aud illustrated by 230 portruita. 



310 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Mrs. Tuthill. 

Mrs. Louisa Caholine Tuthill, 1799 , has had more than ordi- 
nary success as a writer of books for the young, and she was one of the 
earliest to engage extensively in that line of composition. Her stories ai^ 
marked by sobriety and good sense, and are entirely free from the extrava- 
gance and sensationalism which disfigure too many of the books now written 
for juvenile readers. Her books for the young are numerous, and have 
been very popular. 

Mrs. Tuthill's maiden name was Huggins. She was born in New Haven, and educated 
partly there, and partly at Litchfield. She was married in 1817 to Cornelius Tuthill, Esq., a 
lawyer of Newburgh, who after his marriage settled in New Haven. Mr. Tuthill himself 
was of a literary turn, and his wife's first efforts at authorship were due to his suggestions 
and encouragement. He with two friends projected and carried on for a time a literary 
paper. The Microscope, of which he was the editor. Mr. Tuthill died in 1825, leaving a 
widow and four children, — one son and three daughters. 

Mrs. Tuthill's first publication to which she put her name was The Ladies' Reader, 1839. 
It was a book intended to teach rhetoric as well as reading, the selections being all made 
and arranged with a view to illustrate rhetorical principles. Her next book was called The 
Young Lady's Home, being a collection of tales and essays designed to continue a young 
lady's education after she had left school. Her largest work is A History of Architecture. 

Her other publications, mostly story-books, are the following : I will be a Lady ; I will be 
a Gentleman ; Onward, right Onward ; Anything for Sport ; A Strike for Freedom ; The 
Lawyer ; The Artist ; The Mechanic ; Braggadocio ; Queer Bonnets ; Tip-Top ; Beautiful 
Bertha; Joy and Care ; Reality ; Get Money ; Edith ; I will be a Soldier; I will be a Sailor; 
Romantic Belinda; True Manliness, etc. Mrs. Tuthill has been living in Princeton, N. J., 
since 1848. 

One of Mrs. Tuthill's daughters, who declines giving her name to the public, has written 
a large number of Sunday-school books, which are among the best that have appeared from 
any quarter. Some of them are published under the name of " Aunt Friendly." The following 
is the list : Poor Little Joe ; Bound Out ; Hatty and Marcus ; Kate Barley ; The Orange Seed ; 
The Little Musicians ; Meggie of the Pines ; Mary Burns ; Heart and Hand ; Coming to the 
Light, or Fidgety Skeert ; The Babes in the Basket ; Under the Pear-Tree ; The Picket 
Guard ; Little Pete ; Kit, the Street Boy ; Old Enoch's Verbena; The Fisherman's Boy ; The 
Blue Flag; Emily and Uncle Hanse ; Cheerily! Cheerily! The VToodman's Nanette; Han- 
nah's Path ; Buster and Baby Jim ; Strangers in Greenland ; The New Parasol ; Lucy's 
Pet ; Amy and her Brothers ; Barton Todd ; The Boy Patriot ; My Little Geography ; The 
Jewish Twins; The Children on the Plains; Belle, or the Promised Blessing; Timid Lucy; 
The Little Housekeeper; Love's Lesson; Miss Katy's Little Maid; The Miner's Daughter ; 
The Visit to Derby ; The Boy Friend. 

Mrs. Frances H. (Whipple) Green, , was born in Smithfield, R. I., and was de- 
scended on both sides from families of honorable distinction in the history of that State. 
Being early thrown upon her own resources by the misfortunes of her father, she resorted 
to literary composition as a means of support. Her principal publications are the follow- 
ing : Memories of Eleanor Elbridge, a colored woman, 30,000 copies sold; The Mechanic, 
addressed to operatives, 1841 ; Might and Right, a history of the attempted revolution in 
Rhode Island in 1842, known as the Dorr Insurrection. In that same year she con- 
ducted The Wampanoag, a journal devoted to the elevation of the laboring classes, and in 
1848 she became editor of The Young People's Journal, of New York. She contributed 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 311 

largely to varioiis " reform periodicals." Among her poems may be named The DwarTs 
Story, and Nanuntenoo, a Legend of the Narragansetts. 

Harriet Farley, , one of the factory girls at Lowell, and a native of New Hamp- 
shire, began, in 1841, the publication of a magazine. The Lowell Offering, the contents of 
•which were wholly original with herself and her fellow-operatives. Both she and the other 
girls who wrote for the magazine were laborers in the factory ; they had had no education 
but that offered by the New England common school, and the articles were written at such 
intervals of leisure as they could command, while earning their bread by manual labor. Yet 
the magazine was respectable for its literary character and was continued for several years 
with decided success. A selection from its pages was published by Charles Knight, in Lon- 
don, in 1849, entitled Mind among the Spindles, and attracted great applause. 



President Quiney. 

JosTAH QuiNCY, LL. D., 1772-1864, long the honored President of Har- 
vard University, wrote much for the public, but chiefly in the form of pam- 
phlets and addresses on special occasions. His principal work in book form 
was A History of Harvard University. 

President Quiney was a son of Josiah Quiney, of Revolutionary memory, and was born in 
Boston. He graduated at Cambridge, in the class of 1790. He was a lawyer by profession, 
and took an active part in political affairs, both those of his own State and those of the 
United States. He held various important positions of honor and trust, and was the leader 
of the old Federalist party, opposing the Non-intercourse and Embargo Law, and the war 
with England in 1812. He was President of Harvard from 1829 to 1845. President Quincy's 
publications, nearly fifty in number, are mostly in the form of pamphlets on special occa- 
sions, and therefore not easily enumerated in a work like the present. The following are 
the titles of some of his larger works: History of Harvard University, 2 vols.; History of 
the Boston Athenaeum, with Biographical Notes of its Deceased Founders ; A Municipal 
History of the Town and City of Boston during Two Centuries; Memoir of the Life of John 
Quiney Adams; Memoir of James Grahame, LL.D. ; Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quiney, Jr. 

— EdmunT) Quinct, 1808 , son of President Quiney, and a graduate of Harvard, of the 

class of 1827, besides contributions to periodicals and magazines, has published Wansley, a 
Story without a Moral. 

Henry Tare, Jr., D. D., 1794-1843, son of the Dr. Ware mentioned in the preceding chap- 
ter, was born at Hinghara. He was educated at the Phillips Academy, Andover, and at 
Harvard. He became pastor of the Second Church, Boston, in 1816, and preached there with 
great acceptance for thirteen years. In 1829, '30, he travelled extensively in Europe, and 
in 1830 he became Parkman Professor of Pulpit Eloquence in the Divinity School of Har- 
vard, which position he held until 1842. A selection from his writings was published after 
his death, in 4 vols. 8vo. They contain. The Feast of Tabernacles, a poem; The Recollec- 
tions of Jotham Anderson, a tale drawn in part from his own experience ; Biographical 
Essays, etc. 

William Ware, D. D., 1797-1852, a brother of the one just named, was also born at Hing- 
ham. He was graduated at Harvard in 1816. He preached in Unitarian churches in various 
places — New York city. West Cambridge, etc., from 1820 to 1845, when ill health obliged him 
to relinquish all pastoral duty. His first work, Letters from Palmyra, publishi-d in 1836, at- 
tracted general attention. They purport to be letters from a young nobleman of Rome who 
visited Palmyra during the reign of Queen Zenobia, and are among the most successful 



312 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

efiForts to reproduce for the modem reader the every-day life of the Roman empire. In J.838 
he published another work of the same kind, called Probus, introducing the reader to the 
city of P>,ome during the time of the last great persecution of the Christians. Another work, 
Julian, depicts scenes iu Judea and the crucifixion of the Saviour. After his return from 
Europe he wrote Sketches of European Capitals, delivered originally as public lectures. His 
last work was Lectures on AUston, in which he reviews in detail each of the works of that 
great artist. Dr. Ware also edited the Christian Examiner for several years. 

Oliver William Bocrne Peabodt, 1799-184;8, studied at Harvard ; practised law for many 
years, and edited or assisted in editing several newspapers and also the North American Re- 
view. During the later years of his life he was pastor of a Unitarian congregation in Ver- 
mont. He contributed many articles to the reviews and the papers, and published an 
annotated edition of Shakespeare. He also contributed to Sparks's Library of American 
Biography the lives of Putnam and Sullivan. 

William Bourne Oliver Peabodt, 1799-1847, twin-brother of 0. W. B. Peabody, like his 
brother, studied at Harvard, and for upwards of twenty years was pastor of a Unitarian 
church in Springfield, Mass. He contributed several pieces to Sparks's Library of Ameri- 
can Biography, and nearly fifty articles to the North American Review. After his death 
appeared a volume of Literary Remains. Several poems by him were published in the 
Christian Examiner and other papers, and are well-known, such as Monadnock, Hymn of 
Nature, Winter Night, etc. 

George B. Emerson, 1797 , is a native of Maine, and a graduate of Harvard. He is 

extensively and most favorably knov/n as an educator. He wrote, in conjunction with 
Bishop Alonzo Potter, The School and The Schoolmaster, a work which had a wide circu- 
lation. He wrote also A Report on the Trees and Shrubs Growing Naturally in Massachu- 
setts. Several of his Lectures on Education have been published, and he has contributed to 
the North American Review and the Christian Examiner. 

Francis C. Gray, LL. D., 1790-1856, was a native of Salem, Mass., a graduate of Harvard, 
a lawyer by profession, but m\ich addicted to literature. All the latter part of his life was 
spent in Boston, where he was one of the acknowledged literary celebrities of the town. 
His writings, beyond a pretty long list of Addresses, etc., consisted mainly of contributions 
to the North American Review, of which sixteen are enumerated. 

Samuel M. Worcester, D. D., 1701-1866, son of Samuel Worcester, was born at Fitchburg, 
Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1822. He was Tutor in Amherst in 1823, 
and Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory there from 1825 to 1834 ; became pastor of the Taber- 
nacle Church at Salem in 1834 ; was Recording Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M. from 1847 to 
1860. He published Essays on Slavery ; a number of Sermons and Discourses ; and a revised 
edition of the Hymn-Book put forth by his father. 



Horace Mann. 

Horace Mann, LL. D., 1796-1859, is universally known by his writings 
and labors in the cause of popular education. He gave to that cause a new 
and important impulse, the benefits of which have been felt far beyond the 
limits of his own time or of his personal labors. His writings were con- 
fined chiefly to his Annual Keports and his Lectures and Addresses. 

Mr. Mann was a native of Franklin, Mass. Being poor, and with almost no advantages of 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 313 

books or of education, he fought his way by hard work and self-denial into and through 
Brown University, where, in 1819, ho waa graduated with the highest honors of his class. 
Alter gnuluation he studied law, and in 1828 was elected to the State Legislature, where 
he distinguished himself by his zeal for education and temperance, and other philanthropic 
subjects. Somewhat later, he was chosen a member of the State Senate, and then President 
of the Senate. The establishment of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester, is due mainly 
to his exertions. 

In 1837, Mr. Mann w;i5 elected Secretary to the Massachusetts Board of Education, a posi- 
tion which he held for eleven years. His labors and writings in this office constitute his 
chief claim to distinction. His Annual Reports, instead of being mere bundles of dry sta- 
tistics, were filled with reasoning and argument, and oftentimes with burning «loquence. 
His tljeories of education were not always of the soundest. But they were put forth witli a 
power of persuasion that made them models of style for such productions. By these Re- 
ports, and by his public Lectures and Addresses, he unquestionably gave a great impulse 
to popular education, not only in Massachusetts, but throughout the country. 

From 1848 to 1852 he was in Congress. In 1852, he was elected President of Antioch Col- 
lege, in Ohio, in which office he continued until his death. 

His publications, besides his Annual Reports, are : Lectures on Education ; Report of an 
Educational Tour in Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland, the best perhaps of all his works ; 
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man on Entering Life; A Few Thoughts on the Powers and 
Duties of Woman ; Report of the Educational Census of Great Britain, a work often quoted 
in England ; Form and Arrangement of School-Houses, etc. A Life of Horace Mann haa 
been written by his widow. 

EDUCATION. 

Were a being of an understanding mind and a benevolent heart, to see, for the first time, 
a peaceful babe reposing in its cradle, or on its mother's breast, and were he to be told, that 
that infant had been so constituted that every joint and organ in its whole frame might be- 
come the rendezvous of disease and racking pains; that such was its internal structure, that 
every nerve and fibre beneath its skin might be made to throb with a peculiar torture ; that 
in the endless catalogue of human disasters, maladies, adversities, or shames, there was 
scarcely one to which it would not be exposed; that, in the whole criminal law of society, 
and in the more comprehensive and self-executing law of God, there was not a crime which 
its heart might not at some time will, and its hand perpetrate ; that, in the ghastly host of 
tragic passions, — Fear, Envy, Jealousy, Hate, Remorse, Despair, — there was not one which 
might not lacerate its soul, and bring down upon it an appropriate catastrophe ; — were tho 
benevolent spectator whom I have supposed, to see this environment of ills underlying, sur- 
rounding, overhanging their feeble and unconscious victim, and, as it were, watching to dart 
forth and seize it, might he not be excused for wishing the newly-created spirit well back 
again into nonenity ? 

But we cannot return to nonenity. We have no refuge in annihilation. Creative energy 
has been exerted. Our first attribute, the vehicle of all our other attributes, is immor- 
tality. We are of indestructible mould. Do what else we please with our nature and our 
faculties, we cannot annihilate them. Go where we please, self-desertion is impossible. 
Banished, we may be, fron\ the enjoyment of God, but never from liis dominion. There is 
no right or power of exi)atriation. There is no neighboring universe to lly to. If we for- 
swear allegiance, it is but an empty form, for the laws by which we are bound do not only 
surround us, but are in us, and parts of us. Whatsoever other things may be possible, yet to 
breakup or suspend this perpetuity of existence ; to elude this susceptibility to pains, at 
once indefinite in number and indescribable in severity ; to silence conscience, or to say that 
it shall not hold dominion over the soul; to sink tho past in oblivion; or to alter any of tho 
conditions on which Heaven has made our bliss and our woo depend, — those. things are im- 
possible. Personality haa been given us, by which wo must refer all sensatioua, omotioua, 

27 



314 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

resolves, to our conscious selves. Identity has been given us, by virtue of which, through 
whatever ages we exist, our whole being is made a unity. Now, whether curses or bless- 
ings, by these conditions of our nature we must stand ; for they are appointed to us by a 
law higher than Fate, — by the law of God. 

Bavtd p. Page, 1810-1848, the first Principal of the State Normal School at Albany was a 
native of Epping, N. H. He was greatly esteemed in his profession, and his early death was 
lamented by friends of education in everj' part of the United States. His Theory and Practice 
of Teaching, embodying many of his educational views, has been a very useful and popular 
work. 

David Meredith Reese, M.D., LL.D., 1800-1861, was for a time prominently before the 
public in connection with the cause of education. He was Superintendent of Public Schools 
of the city of New York, and edited the American reprint of Chambers's Educational Course, 
Scientific Section, 12 vols. He wrote Strictures on Health, sale 30,000 copies ; Eeview of the 
Anti-Slavery Society's Report, sale 25,000 copies ; Phrenology known by its Fruits ; Quaker- 
ism versus Calvinism ; Humbugs of New York, etc. 

Charles Coffin Jewett, 1816-1868, a learned bibliographer and linguist, is a graduate of 
Brown Univeraity, and was at one time Professor of Modern Languages in the same. He 
was also Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In that position he advocated 
the policy of devoting a large part of the income of the institution to library purposes, and 
therein took issue against the views of the Secretary, Prof. Henrj', and of a majority of the 
Regents. Prof. Jewett has written chiefly on the subject of public libraries : On the Con- 
struction of Catalogues of Libraries, by means of Separate Stereotyped Titles ; Notices of 
Public Libraries in the United States ; Facts and Considerations relative to Duties on 
Books, etc. 

Frederic Saunders, 1807 ,was born in London. He began business as a publisher in 

New York in 1836; was appointed Assistant Librarian in the Astor Library, in 1859. He 
has written a considerable number of works of light literature : Memoirs of the Great Me- 
tropolis; New York in a Nut-shell ; Salad for the Solitary; Salad for the Social; Pearls of 
Thought, Religious and Philosophical, etc. 

Schoolcraft. 

Henky Kowe Schoolceajft, LL. D., 1793-1864, has acquired for him- 
self an enduring name, by his writings and researches in reference to the 
Indian tribes of North America. 

Mr. Schoolcraft was born at Watervliet, N. Y. He studied at Union College, but did not 
complete the course. 

Mr. Schoolcraft commenced at a very early age that series of researches into Indian anti- 
quities with which his name is so indissolubly associated. He spent in all thirty years 
among the Indians, chiefly at Michilimackinac. He was the founder of the Michigan His- 
torical Society, and of the Algic Society at Detroit. In 1832 he discovered the sources of the 
Mississippi River in Itasca Lake. The latter part of his life was passed in Washington, D.C. 

His publications are very numerous. The best known of them are his Narrative Journal 
of Travels to the Source of the Mississippi ; Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper 
Mississippi to Itasca Lake; Summary Narrative of an Exploring Expedition to the Sources 
of the Upper Mississippi ; The Myth of Hiawatha (the basis of Longfellow's celebrated poem) ; 
Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years among the Indian Tribes, etc. His great 
w^ork is his Historical Information concerning the Indian Tribes, etc., published by act of 
Congress, in six large quarto volumes, profusely and handsomely illustrated. The work 
contains au immense amount of information upon everything relating to Indian manners. 



'FROM 1830 TO 1850. 315 

mythology, antiquities, language, etc., but so poorly digested and so deficient in philosophic 
method as to be, in the words of Humboldt, "almost worthless." The volumes are a mine 
from which the gold is yet to be extracted by some future explorer. 

George Catlin, 1796 , artist and writer, a native of Pennsylvania, spent eight years 

among the Indians, Uiking notes and painting portraits and costumes, and thus collected 
the materials for his famous Indian Gallery, wliich he exhibited in Europe. He published 
Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, 2 
vols., 8vo; The North American Portfolio of Hunting Scenes and Amusements; Notes of 
Eight Years' Travel and Residence in Europe, 2 vols. 

Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., 1801 , Rear Admiral in the United States Navy, was com- 
mander of an exploring expedition sent out by the American Government, which extended 
through four years, 1838-42. The results of the expedition were published by the Govern- 
ment, in 1845, United Stutes Exploring Expeditiob, 5 vols., imperial 4to. The narrative 
portions of this great work were by Capt. Wilkes. The scientific portions were by various 
oflBcers detailed for this purpose. 

John Lloyd Stephens, 1805-1852, the well-known American traveller, was born at Shrews- 
bury, N. J., and graduated at Columbia, in the class of 1822. 

In 1834-6 he travelled in Europe and the East, and published the results of his observation 
in 1837 and 1838, in two works entitled respectively Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia 
Petraea and the Holy Land, and Incidents of Travel in Greece, Russia, Turkey, and Poland. 
These works were very favorably received by critics and the public. 

Mr. Stephens is even better known, however, as a traveller in Central America. He 
visited that region three or four times and superintended the construction of the Panama 
Railroad. Two works of travel were published by him : Incidents of Travel in Central 
America, and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, both profusely illustrated by Catherwood. He 
furnished the text for Catherwood's Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America. 
Stephens and Squier are the two great American authorities on the subject of Central Ameri- 
ca. His works have met with a wide sale, and contain the record of many important dis- 
coveries presented in a pleasing style. 

James Stryker, 1792-1864, was born in Richmond County, N. Y., and graduated at Columbia 
College, in the class of 1809. He was a lawyer by profession, and was Judge in the Courts 
at Buffalo, from 1830 to 1840. He originated and edited Stryker's American Register, 6 vols., 
8vo, from 1848 to 1852, a work of some importance for contemporaneous history. 

Rev. James H. Perkixs, 1810-1849, was bom in Boston. lie was bred to mercantile busi- 
ness, but not finding it congenial, and not liking Boston society, he went to Cincinnati, in 
1832, studied law, and began the practice, but finding it no more congenial than commerce, 
he began in 1834 a literary career. He wrote for the Western Monthly, and united with 
Gallagher and Shreve in The Cincinnati Mirror. In 1837 he contributed a series of critical 
and historical articles for The New York Quarterly, and The North American Review. He 
published also The Annals of the West, "a work whose accuracy, completeness, thorough- 
ness of research, clear method, and powerful perspicuity of style show his admirable qualifi- 
cations for an historian." — W. If. ChuniiirKj. In 1839, he became minister at large to the 
poor of Cincinnati, and soou after pastor of the Unitarian church. He continued iu this rela- 
tion until his death in 1849. 

Thomas B. Thorpe, 1815 , was born at Westfield, M.iss. He was educated at the Wes- 

leyan University, at Middletown, Conn. He loft Conntcticut for the South in 183G, and 
settled iu Louisiana, where he resided until lSo3. He edited a paper there in the interest 
of Henry Clay. On the breaking out of the Mexican war in 184G, he took an active purl 
in raising volunteers. As bearer of deapatcbes to Genei-al Taylor, he was early iu the field, 



316 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

and had a fine opportunity for witnessing the scenes of the war. His letters, describing the 
progress of affairs, were the first that reached the United States, and were extensively copied 
in the newspapers. He prepared also, during that year, two volumes on the subject, Our 
Army on the Rio Grande, and Our Army at Monterey, which furnished the materials for 
most of the subsequent publications on the subject by compilers. Mr. Thorpe took an 
active part in the canvass for General Taylor for the Presidency, passing through the South- 
western States as a political speaker. In 1853, he removed to New York, and engaged in 
literary pursuits. While in New Orleans he had published many tales, racy of Western 
life, under the name of Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter. He now collected these in a volume, 
The Hive of the Bee-Hunter, which was well received. Some of his other publications are 
The Mysteries of the Backwoods ; Lynde Weiss, an Autobiography ; A Voice to America, 
etc. Mr. Thorpe has contributed to Harper, Blackwood, The Spirit of the Times, etc, 

Robert Anderson Wilson, 1812 , was born in Cooperstown, N. Y. He lived three 

years and a half in California, and was Judge in Sacramento Gold District. He has pub- 
lished Mexico and its Religion, containing incidents of travel in that country during the 
years 1851-1854 ; A New History of the Conquest of Mexico. 

Mordecai M. Noah. 

MoEDECAi M. Noah, 1785-1851, was for many years one of the most 
conspicuous journalists of New York city. He was the author also of a 
number of books and pamphlets. 

Mr. Noah, or Major Noah, as he was generally called, was born in Philadelphia. At an 
early age he went to Charleston, S. C. In 1813-16, he was United States Consul at Morocco. 
On returning he settled in New York, where he resided the rest of his life. He was much 
respected, and enjoyed many civic honors. 

He was at different times editor or proprietor, or both, of The National Advocate, The 
Courier and Inquirer, The Evening Star, The Morning Star, The Sun, and The Weekly Mes- 
senger. He published Travels in France, England, Spain, and the Barbary States, 1812-15 ; 
Essays on Domestic Economy ; Translation of the Book of Joshua ; A Discourse on the Res- 
toration of the Jews ; Gleanings from a Gathered Harvest, being newspaper articles repro- 
duced in book form. He also wrote a number of Plays. 

Mr. Noah was of the Jewish faith. After his return from Africa, he made a quixotic 
attempt to gather the Jews, from all parts of the world, to Grand Island, in the Niagara 
River, where they were to constitute a Hebrew Commonwealth and build a New Jerusalem, 
Major Noah being the Judge in Israel. He seems to have been in earnest in the matter; the 
difiiculty was, no one responded to his call, and the kind-hearted old gentleman was a good 
deal laughed at, 

Joseph T. Buckingham, 1779-1861, was a journalist of considerable celebrity. He edited 
the New England Galaxy, New England Magazine, and Boston Courier. He published also 
Specimens of Newspaper Literature, with Personal Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Reminiscences, 
2 vols. ; and Personal Memoir and Recollections of Editorial Life, 2 vols. 

Charles F. Briggs, , a native of Nantucket and a resident of New York, has been 

actively engaged in journalism in New York, in connection with the Broadway Journal, 
Putnam's Magazine, and the New York Times. He has published separately Harry Franco, 
a Tale of the Great Panic ; The Haunted Merchant ; Working a Passage ; The Trippings of 
Tom Pepper. 

Gen. John A. Dix, 1798 ^ is a native of New Hampshii-e, but in his public life has 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 317 

been connected chiefly with the State of New York. He was Secretary of the Treasury of 
the United States in 1S60-61 ; on the outbreak of war, he was made Major-General, and 
held various important commands ; and in 1867, he was sent as Minister to France. He has 
published Resources of the City of New York ; A Winter in Madeira ; A Summer in Spain 
and Florence. 

Joseph G. Cogswell, LL. D., 1786 , was born at Ipswich, Mass., and a graduate at Har- 
vard, in the class of 1806, and at one time was a Professor in the same. He was associated 
with Mr. Bancroft in the establishment of the Round Hill School, at Northampton, Mass. 
Since 1848, he has been Librarian of the Astor Library, New York. He has contributed to 
Blackwood's Magazine, the North American Review, and other periodicals. He is preparing 
a Catalogue of the Astor Library, to be in 8 vols. 

John Russell Bartlett, 1805 , a native of Rhode Island, was a Commissioner on the 

part of the United States for running the Mexican boundary line. His publications are 
Progress of Ethnology, Reminiscences of Albert Gallatin, Dictionary of Americanisms, OfBcial 
Report of the Boundary Commission, and Personal Narrative of Incidents connected with 
the Boundary Commission. 

William A. Alcott, M.D., 1798-1859, was born at Wolcott, Conn., and educated at a dis- 
trict school. He supported himself for a time by teaching and farming, and afterwards 
studied medicine at Yale. He wrote much upon school reforms. His chief labors, however, 
were upon reforms in diet. He discarded, both in theory and practice, all drinks but water, 
and all animal food. He published a very large number of small books, more than a hun- 
dred, devoted to the dissemination of these views. Those best known are the following : 
Young Man's Guide, Young Woman's Guide, Young Mother, Young Husband", Young Wife, 
Young Housekeeper, House I live in, Yegetable Diet, Water Cure, Tobacco (a prize essay) ; 
Library of Health (6 vols.) ; Moral Reform, etc. 



A. J. Downing. 

Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815-1852, was an accomplished writer 
on the subject of landscape gardening, and by his publications contributed 
largely to the improvement of public taste in America, in the matter of rural 
adornment. 

Mr. Downing was bom and lived in Newburgh, N. Y., and perished in the burning of the 
steamer Henry Clay, on the Hudson River, July, 1852. His publications had a large sale, 
and were of a high order of merit. Tlie following are the chief: Landscape Gardening and 
Rural Architecture ; Fruit and Fruit-Trees of America; Cottage Residences; Architecture 
of Country Houses; Rural Essays, a collection of papers printed originally in the Horticul- 
turist. "In these admirable works Mr. Downing has done much to improve the taste of 
our rural inhabitants, and at the same time to promote the best and most judicious selection 
and culture of fruit-trees." —C/iance«or King. "A masterly work." —Loudon. " The stand- 
ard work on this subject." — SiUiman's Journal. 

Rev. John Bristed, 1778-1855, the father of Charles Astor Bristed, and the son-in-law of 
John Jacob Astor, was a clergyman of the established church in England, who came to this 
country and settled in Rhode Island. He wrote several works : The Resources of the United 
States; Edward and Anna, a novel; The System of the Society of Friends examined; A 
Pedestrian Tour through the Highlands of Scotland ; Critical and Philosophical Essays. Mr. 
Bristed's works arc considered by the critics as rather dull. 

27* 



318 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

John Frederick Schroeder, D.D., 1800-1857, was a native of Baltimore, and a graduate of 
Princeton, of the class of 1819. He occupied for many years a conspicuous place among the 
clergy of the Episcopal Church in New York city, and established an important classical 
school, St. Ann's Hall, in Flushing, L. I. He published, in connection with Drs. Turner, 
Whittingham, and Eastburn, Essays and Dissertations in Biblical Literature. He wrote 
also Life and Times of Washington ; Maxims of Washington ; Class Book of Astronomy, and 
Sunday Addresses. 

Rev. Fitch Waterman Tatlor, 1803-1865, was born in Middle Haddam, Conn., and gradu- 
ated at Yale, in the class of 1828. He was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, and a 
chaplain in the United States Navy. He published The Flag Ship, or a Voyage around the 
WorW; The Broad Pennant, or a Cruise in the United States Flag Ship during the Mexican 
DifBculties. 

Rev. Calvin Colton, 1789-1857, was a native of Longmeadow, Mass., and a graduate of 
Yale. He began his career as a Presbyterian minister, but afterwards took orders in the 
Episcopal Church. He was four years in England, and while there was a correspondent for 
the New York Observer. His writings are numerous: Reasons for Preferring Episcopacy; 
Genius and Mission of the Episcopal Church in the United States ; The Americans, by an 
American in London; A Manual for Emigrants to America; History and Character of 
American Revivals of Religion ; The American Cottage ; A Tour of the American Lakes ; 
Church and State in America; Four Years in Great Britain ; Protestant Jesuitism; Abolition 
a Sedition; A Voice from America to England; The Crisis of the Country; Junius Tracts; 
The Rights of Labor; Public Economy for the United States; I*ast Seven Years of the Life 
of Henry Clay. Mr. Colton also edited The Correspondence and The Speeches of Henry Clay. 

Walter Colton, 1797-1851, brother of Calvin, was a native of Rutland, Vt., and a graduate 
of Yale. He was a chaplain in the United States Navy, which gave him many opportunities 
for travel. Several popular volumes were the result of his wanderings: Ship and Shore; A 
Visit to Constantinople and Athens; Deck and Port, Incidents of a Cruise to California; 
Three Years in California; The Sea and the Sailor. 

Solon Robinson, 1803 , a native of Tolland, Conn., has written largely for agricultural 

purposes. He published in 1853 a sensational work, called Hot-Corn, or Life Scenes in New 
York, which sold 50,000 copies in the first year. 

Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, 1794 , chiefly known for his efforts as a temperance lecturer, is 

a native of Charlotte County, Va.-, and a graduate of Hampden Sidney College. Besides a 
work on Baptism, he wrote several temperance tales, of which these are the chief: It will 
not injure me; Death by Measure ; History of Jesse Johnson and his Times ; Wedding Days 
of Former Times ; Liquor Selling a System of Fraud, etc. 

David Hoffman, LL. D., I. U. D., 1784-1854, an eminent legal writer, and Professor of Law 
in the University of Maryland. His legal publications are addressed chiefly to students, 
and are highly prized. Tbe principal of them are: A Course of Legal Study; Legal Out- 
lines; Legal Hints. Hoffman also produced a literary work. Miscellaneous Thoughts on 
Men and Things, by Anthony Grumbler, of Grumbler Hall, and two volumes of Chronicles 
from tliKJ Originals of Cartapliilus, the Wandering Jew. The author's design extended to 
Bix volumes, but was left incomplete by his death. 

Robert Baird, D. D., 1798-1863, was a native of Pennsylvania and a student of theology 
in Princeton Seminary. lie was widely known by his labors for the promotion of Temper- 
ance and the extension of Protestantism in Europe. He published while abroad two works, 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 319 

which were extensively circulated : History of the Temperance Societies, translated into 
French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian ; A View of Religion in America, 
translated into French, German, Dutch, and Swedish. His other publications are Protes- 
tantism in Italy; History of the Waldenses, Albisenses, and Vauiloia: Christian I'.etrospcct 
and Register; A View of the Valley of the Mississippi. Dr. Baird accomplished a gre^t 
work in making American institutions known to the people of northern Europe, both by 
personal visitation and by the two books first named; and an almost equal work by his lec- 
tures and addresses in the United States ou the institutions of Europe. 

Charles S. Stewart, D.D., 1795-1870, was born in Flemington, N. J. He was graduated 
at Princeton, in the class of 1815; studied law, and afterwards theology; went as a mission- 
ary to the Sandwich Islands, where he remained from 182:5 to 1825. On returning, he be- 
came chaplain in the United States navy, which position he long held. He wrote Private 
Journal of a Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and Residence at the Sandwich Islands ; A Visit 
to the South Seas in the United States Ship Vincennes, in 1829-30; Sketches of Society in 
Great Britain and Ireland ; Brazil and La Plata, The Personal Record of a Cruise. 

Gallaudet. ' 

Eev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL. D., 1787-1851, is justly celebrated 
for his efforts in the education of deaf mutes. He was indeed the apostle 
of this work in the United States. Besides his labors in this direction, 
he wrote many valuable works. Among these, two deserve particular 
mention, The Child's Book of the Soul, and the Youth's Book of Natural 
Theology. 

Mr. Gallaudet was bom in Philadelphia. He studied theology in Andover, Mass., and 
preached, but was never settled in the ministry. Feeling a special interest in the conditicm 
of deaf mutes, he helped in 1815, to form an association for their relief, and went to Paris to 
qualify himself as an instructor, by studying the system there perfected by the Abb6 Sicard. 
The institution at Hartford, the first of the kind in the United States, was opened under his 
direction in 1817, and he continued to superintend it until 1830, when failing health obliged 
him to resign. 

Dr. Gallaudet's publications, which are numerous, are all marked by that talent for simpli- 
fication, which was one of the gifts that fitted him for his peculiar work, and which was de- 
veloped and strengthened by the work itself. His two most characteristic works are those 
already named. The Child's Book of the Soul, and The Youth's Book of Natural Theology. 
In both these we see traces of that wonderful skill in analysis and simple conception which 
gave him such succe.ss in gaining access to the minds of those shut out from ordinary inter- 
course with their kind by the closing of what Bunyan calls the ear-gate. 

The principal publications of Dr. Gallaudet, besides these, are the following: The Child's 
Book on Repentance; The Child's Book of Bible Stories; a part of the Youth's Scripture 
Biography, 11 vols., publi.shed by the American Tract Society, the series being completed by 
Rev. H. Hooker; An Elementary Book for the Use of Iho Dejif and Dumb; Principles of 
Teaching; The Child's Picture, Defining, and Reading Bonk; The Mother's Primer; The 
School and Family Dictionary and Illustrative Definer ; Discourses on various Points of 
Christian Faith and Practice, delivered in Paris in 181G. while he was studying with the 
Abbe Sicard ; also several pamphlet sermons aud addresses on various occasious. 

Harvet p. Peet, LL.D., 1794 , like his former associate. Dr. Gallaudet, has a national 

reputation as an instructor of the deaf and dumb. Ho has bi-en engagefl, since 18.11, as 
Principal of the New York Institution. Besides Addresses and Reports on the subject, he 



320 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

has written A Course of Instmction for the Deaf and Dnmb, 4 toIb., -which is extensiyely 
used. 

John Wilson, 1802-1868, the Punctnist, was bom in Glasgow, and coming to the United 
States settled in Boston about the year 1843, where he acquired a high reputation as a 
printer. He published sevei-al works in favor of Universalism : Scripture Proofs and Ilhis- 
trations of Uiiiversalism ; The Concessions of Trinitarians ; Unitarian Principles Confirmed 
by Trinitarian Testimonies. But his chief work was one in the line of his business, namely, 
A Treatise on English Punctuation, and an abridgment of the same. The Elements of Punc- 
tuation. In this work, Mr. Wilson places punctuation on a clear and intelligible grammat- 
ical basis, and so completely exhausts the subject as to leave nothing to be desired, — unless 
it be a law of Congress, making it a penal offence for any printer, author, schoolmaster, or 
professor, not to have a copy always on his table ! 

John K. Mitchell, M.D., 1798-1858, a very eminent medical lecturer and practitioner of 
Philadelphia, was born in Shepardstown, Va. His early education was received in Edin- 
burgh. He returned to America at the age of seventeen, and took his medical degree in 
the University of Pennsylvania in 1819, being then twenty-one years old. Besides his medi- 
cal writings, which are numerous and valuable, he published St. Helena, a poem ; Indecision 
and Other Poems; On the Wisdom, Goodness, and Power of God, as illustrated in the Prop- 
erties of Water, besides numerous contributions to literary periodicals. 

F. A. Packard. 

Fkedeeick A. Packard, LL. D., 1794-1867, was for a period of thirty- 
eight years the editor of the publications of the American Sunday-School 
Union, and the controlling spirit of its affairs. He edited more than two 
thousand of its publications, big and little, and wrote or compiled more 
than forty of them, besides editing, at different times, The Sunday-School 
Magazine, The Sunday-School Journal, and The Youth's Penny Gazette. 
He wrote also most of the Society's Annual Reports. 

Mr. Packard was a native of Marlborough, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, in the class 
of 1814. He studied law at Northampton, practised at Springfield from 1817 to 1829, and 
while there edited, for ten years, the Hampden Federalist. From 1829 to 1867, a period of 
thirty-eight years, he was chief Secretary and Editor of the American Sunday-School 
Union. 

Mr. Packard's three most important books were the Union Bible Dictionary, The Teacher 
Taught, and Tlie Teacher Teaching. The sale of all these was very large. 

He took an active interest in the subject of prison discipline, and wrote several pamphlets 
about it. He wrote a pamphlet. The Daily Public School of the United States, attacking the 
system, and he contributed occasionally to the reviews, but for the most part confined his 
labors to the publications and the affairs of the society. 

Rembrandt Peale, 1778-1860, son of Charles Wilson Peale, was a Philadelphian by birth 
and residence. He was a painter by profession, and attained in it a just celebrity. He had 
a love for the art amounting to a passion, and he pursued it with unflagging zeal to the last. 
Mr. Peale had an earnest conviction that drawing, so far at least as training the eye to observe, 
and the hand to make, the elements of form, should be a part of primary education, holding the 
same place in the programme of studies as learning to read, spell, and compute, and actu- 
ally preceding the learning to write. He prepared a small work on this subject, called 
Graphics, reducing the art to its simplest elements, and labored earnestly for many years to 



FROM 1830 TO 1850. 321 

secure the introduction of the study into the primary schools. His efforts have left some 
impression, but not to the extent of his wishes. Besides his labors in this line, Mr. Peale 
•wrote Notes on Italy, Portfolio of an Artist, etc. 

James D. Nourse, 1816-1854, a native of Bardstown, Ky., edited at different times three 
different papers in Bardstown, and at the time of his death was editor of the Intelligencer, 
in St. Louis. lie wrote the Philosophy of History ; Remarks on the Past and its Lega- 
cies to American Society, or God in History ; The Forest Knight, a Novel ; and Leaven- 
worth, a story of the prairies. 

Joseph C. Passmore, D. D., 1818-1866, was a native of Lancaster, Pa. He entered the min- 
istry of the Episcopal Cliurch in 1848. He was for many years Professor of Mental Philoso- 
phy in the College of St. James, Maryland. He published Footprints, or Fugitive Poems; 
and an edition of Bishop Butler's Ethical Discourses, with an Introductory Essay on the 
author's Life and Writings. 

Nicholas Biddle. 

Nicholas Biddle, LL.D., 1786-1844, occupied so conspicuous a posi- 
tion as a financier, and as President of the United States Bank, that his 
claims as a literary man have almost been lost sight of. He was, however, 
one of the most brilliant writers of his day, and his articles in vindication 
of the Bank, as well as his literary addresses, attracted great attention by 
their polished wit and by the singular force and elegance of his language. 

Mr. Biddle was a native of Philadelphia, of Quaker blood, his ancestors having come over 
with William Penn. He graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1801. From 1804 to 1807 he was 
Secretary of Legation in Paris and London. On his return to Philadelphia he practised law. 
He edited The Portfolio, compiled a Commercial Digest, and prepared the Narrative of Lewis 
& Clarke's Expedition to the Pacific. He was at different times in the State Legislature, 
and President of the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, of the Girard College, and 
of numerous other public institutions. His great work, however, was that performed as 
President of the Bank of the United States. His two most noted public addresses were A 
Eulogium on Jefferson, before the American Philosophical Society, and An Address before 
the Alumni of Princeton on the Duties of an American. 

Joseph R. Chandler, 1792 , a native of Massachusetts, but a resident of Philadelphia, 

edited for a long time the United States Gazette, in which position he acquired a high repu- 
tation as a journalist. He published an English Grammar, and numerous addresses on public 
occasions, besides the speeches which he delivered while in Congress. 

Robert Sears, 1810 , was born in St. John, New Brunswick. He has been an indus- 
trious and successful compiler. His compilations, mostly pictorial, have had an enormous 
sale. The following are the titles of a few : Illustrations of the Bible ; Family Bible ; His- 
tory of China and India; Thrilling Incidents of the Wars of the United States ; Treasury of 
Knowledge and Cyclopaedia of Art ; Information for the People ; Wonders of the World, etc., 
etc. 

Edwin Williams, 1797-1854, an industrious writer on statistics, was born at Norwich, 
Conn. He resided for many years in New York. He published The Now York Annual 
Register, from 1830 to 1845 ; The Statesman's Manual, 4 vols., 8vo ; The New Universal Ga- 
zetteer ; The Treasury of Knowledge, etc. 

V 



322 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Frank B. Goodrich, 1826 , is a native of Boston, and a son of the well known writer, 

Samuel G. Goodrich, alias Peter Parley. The son has written several works of a popular 
character, and was for some time the Paris correspondent of the New York Times, under the 
signature of Dick Tinto. His separate publications are Tri-Colored Sketches of Paris ; Court 
of Napoleon, or Society under the First Empire ; Women of Beauty and Heroism ; Man 
upon the Sea, or A History of Maritime Adventure, Exploration, and Discovery. 

S. G. Goodrich — '^ Peter Parley." 

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, 1793-1863, better known as Peter Par- 
ley, was remarkably successful in simplifying various kinds of knowl- 
edge, chiefly historical, so as to make it easily understood by young readers, 
and consequently useful as a means of education. The Peter Parley books 
form a noticeable feature in the literature of the period. 

Mr. Goodrich was a native of Ridgefield, Conn. After attaining his majority, he began 
business as a bookseller, in Hartford, and continued in the business for several years. In 
1823-4 he travelled abroad, visiting England, France, Germany, and Holland. On returning 
to the United States, he entered upon his career as a writer, assuming the name of Peter 
Parley, now a household word thoughout Europe and America. In 1851, he was appointed 
United States Consul at Paris, and he continued to reside there for many years in that 
capacity. 

Mr. Goodrich's pen was kept busy to the close of his life, — how busy, may be inferred 
from the fact that he was either author or editor of one hundred and seventy distinct vol- 
umes ; and how far his labors were acceptable, may be judged from the fact that over seven 
millions of volumes of his works were sold during his lifetime. It is true that many <>f these 
books were compilations, and that in the compilation he had the aid of several colaborers. It 
is also true that much of what he published was not of a very high order of literature. But 
those who sneer at such writing as entirely beneath the dignity of authorship, would do 
well to try their hands at a few pages of Peter Parleyisui before pronouncing a final verdict. 
Mr. Goodrich made no pretence to classical or critical erudition or to historical research, but 
he had a special gift for writing in a style suited to the taste and comprehension of children, 
and he exercised his gift in a way that has brought lasting honor to him, and has been a 
public benefit to his race. 

Tlie following are his leading works: Peter Parley books, 116 vols., on a great variety of 
subjects likely to interest children ; School books (Histories, Geographies, Readers, etc.), 
27 vols.; Miscellaneous, 27 vols. Among the miscellaneous are three volumes of poems. 
Allibone's Dictionary of Authors contains a minute enumeration of Mr. Goodrich's works, 
prepared by himself, and stating in regard to each volume the circumstances of its author- 
ship, showing which were exclusively his own, and in regard to those compiled by himself 
and others jointly, showing what share he had in them. The record is a curious and valu- 
able one. It was called out by an attack made on the author by a Boston critic, alleging 
that the Peter Parley books were really not the work of Mr. Goodrich but of one of his 
assistants. 




CHAPTER V. 

From 1850 to the Present Time. 
The present Chapter treats mainly of writers still living. 

Some writers still- living are Included in the previous chapter because it is many years 
since they have published anything. Their activity in authorship belongs to a former 
generation. 

The writers included in Chapter V. are divided into eleven 
sections : 1. The Poets, beginning with Longfellow ; 2. Writers 
on Literature and Criticism, beginning with Lowell ; 3. Magazin- 
ists, beginning with Holmes ; 4. Journalists, beginning with Ben- 
nett ; 5. Humorists, beginning with Artemus Ward ; 6. Miscel- 
laneous Writers, beginning with Bayard Taylor ; 7. Novelists 
and writers of Tales and Travels, beginning with Hawthorne ; 
8. Historians, beginning with Prescott ; 9. Writers on Politics 
and Political Economy, beginning with Henry C. Carey ; 10. Sci- 
entific writers, beginning with Agassiz ; 11. Writers on Religion 
and Theology, beginning with Hodge. 

I. the poets. 
Longfellibw. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, LL. D., 1807 , is by general 

consent the most distinguished living representative of the poetical litera- 
ture of the country. He is clearly our American Poet- Laureate, — crowned 
by general sufTrage, alike of the learned and the unlearned, the critic and 
those who read only for the pleasure his sweet verse gives them. 

Mr. Longfellow is a native of Portland, Me. He graduated at Bowdoin 

323 



324 AMEEICAN LITEEATUEE. 

College in the class of 1825, and was appointed Professor of Modern Lan- 
guages in the same, in 1826. After receiving this appointment, he passed four 
years in Europe in fitting himself for the post. In 1835, he succeeded 
George Ticknor in the chair of Belles- Lettres at Harvard, when he again 
visited Europe. He retired from his professorship at Harvard in 1854, and 
has since devoted himself exclusively to literature. 

Longfellow is undoubtedly the most conspicuous name hitherto, in the 
list of American poets and writers of imagination. Hawthorne is more 
profound and subtle, Bryant more robust. Holmes and Lowell and Saxe are 
more witty. But Longfellow's name symbolizes all that is liberal, tender, 
and cultured in American letters. His career has been one of unbroken 
and ever growing popularity. 

Prof. Longfellow began publication very early. Several of his poems 
which appeared before he was yet nineteen, and while still a student in col- 
lege, have been retained in the collected edition of his works. One of these 
college poems was the Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, which 
early found its way into the reading books of the common schools. 

Hjs first volume, 1833, was Coplas de Manrique, — a translation from the 
Spanish, with an Essay on the Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain. 

His next volume, 1835, was Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea. 
It was a poetical prose work, not unlike the Sketch-Book of Washington 
Irving. 

A third volume, also of poetical prose, was Hyperion, a Romance, 1839. 

The same year appeared Voices of the Night, a collection of short poems, 
containing among others A Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the Flowers, 
and The Beleaguered City. This volume contained likewise a reprint of 
certain Early Poems, already referred to, and a large number of poetical 
translations from the Spanish, German, Italian, French, Danish, and Anglo- 
Saxon. 

In 1841, appeared Ballads and other Poems, containing several pieces 
which attained immediate and lasting favor, such as The Skeleton in Armor, 
God's-Acre, To the Eiver Charles, Blind Bartimeus, and Excelsior. 

Poems on Slavery appeared in 1842, and in the same year The Spanish 
Student, a Play, of which the sale has been large. 

In 1845, he published The Poets and Poetry of Europe, a large octavo, 
containing biographical and critical notices, and translations by himself and 
others. 

The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems appeared in 1846. The most 
noted of the pieces in this collection were The Arsenal at Springfield, and 
The Old Clock on the Stairs. 

Evangeline, his first long poem, was published in 1847. 

Kavanagh, a prose tale, descriptive of New England life, appeared in 
1849. The same year witnessed the publication of Seaside and Fireside, a 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 325 

collection of short poems. Among these were The Building of the Ship, 
Eesignation, and Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass. 

The Golden Legend, his longest single poem, was Issued in 1851. It is 
a narrative poem, giving a lively picture of monastic and civil life in the 
Middle Ages, and is remarkable for its variety of style and versification. 

The Song of Hiawatha, another long poem, appeared in 1855. Like 
Evangeline, it attracted universal attention, both by the freshness of its sub- 
ject and the novelty of its versification. 

The Courtship of Miles StandLsh, another long poem, also immediately 
popular, appeared in 1858. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn, a collection of poems somewhat after the fashion 
of the Canterburj' Tales, was published in 1863. The pieces in this collec- 
tion which are best known are Paul Revere's Kide, and the Birds of Killing- 
worth. A continuation of these Tales, called The Second Day, appeared in 
1872. 

Another collection appeared under the title of Birds of Passage, among 
its exquisite gems being The Children's Hour, and Weariness ; and in 1866 
was piiblished a volume called Flower-de-Luce and other Poems. 

Since that time have appeared New England Tragedies, and the Divine 
Tragedy. These last, it is said, are to be taken in connection with The 
Golden Legend, published twenty years ago, the whole forming one con- 
nected work of art, somewhat as do the successive Arthurian legends of 
Tennyson. 

In 1867, appeared the translation of Dante's Divina Commedia, in three 
superb octavos. It is the crowning achievement of jNIt. Longfellow's remark- 
able skill as a translator. 

From this rapid sketch, it appears that Mr. Longfellow has been actively 
and almost continuously productive as an author for forty -seven years. His 
longer poems, The Golden Legend, Evangeline, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, 
The Spanish Student, and the translation of Dante, are familiarly known to 
all readers of English poetry. Each of his many collections of short pieces 
has contained some which have become household words wherever the Eng- 
lish tongue is spoken. 

Although Mr. Longfellow has written so much, and on such a variety of 
topics, his poetry cannot be said, in strictness, to have a wide range of 
thought or characterization. His utterances are in the middle key between 
the matter-of-fact and the highly ideal. The chief defect of his poetry is a 
want of deep, active passion. The Golden Legend borders upon, if it does 
not enter, the domain of the sentimental ; and Evangeline is plaintive and 
resigned, rather than passionate. There is not, in all his compositions, one 
tumultuous outburst of feeling that can be placed by the side of hundreds 
that mark his great contemporary, Tennyson. On the other hand, Long- 
fellow's verse is always tender and delicate, unobtrusively winning its way 
to the heart. It is the chosen companion of our quiet, unbent moods. 
28 



326 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Longfellow's longer poems are unequal. Hiawatha, so much read and 
admired at first, has lost much of its popularity. Whatever its merits as a 
poem, it can no longer be regarded as a portrait of Indian life and charac- 
ter. The Golden Legend, based upon Hartman von Aue's Arne Heinrich 
(Poor Henry), a well-known German poem of the thirteenth century, con- 
tains many beautiful passages, but is not, upon the whole, a durable work. 
Evangeline and Miles Standish, on the contrary, will always hold their 
own. The former is the best specimen of the hexameter in English, is in- 
teresting as a story, and full of the choicest scenes and touches of character, 
while the robust figures of the Puritan captain, in his haps and mishaps, 
and of John Alden and Priscilla, are now part and parcel of our national 
treasures. Still, coming generations, it is believed, will cherish Longfellow 
chiefly as a sweet singer. His future fame will rest upon those short, ex- 
quisitely simple utterances that speak for the weary heart and aching brain 
of all humanity. 

" Each of his most noted poems is the song of a feeling common to every 
mind in moods into which every mind is liable to fall. Thus, A Psalm of 
Life, Footsteps of Angels, To the Eiver Charles, Excelsior, The Bridge, 
The Gleam of Sunshine, The Day is Done, The Old Clock on the Stairs, 
The Arrow and the Song, The Fire of Driftwood, Twilight, The Open 
Window, are all most adequate and inexpressibly delicate renderings of 
quite universal emotions. There is a humanity in them which is irresist- 
ible in the fit measures to which they are wedded." — G. W. Curtis. 

In conclusion, we may add that Longfellow is no less eminent as a trans- 
lator than as an author. His shorter renderings from the French, German, 
and Spanish, are perfect reproductions of the spirit and form of the originals, 
while his version of the Divina Commedia is, beyond question, the best 
in the language. It has done all that the English tongue is capable of do- 
ing in the reproduction of the great Italian master. Besides, by his notes 
and essays accompanying the translation, Longfellow has revealed his re- 
markable wealth of scholarship and exquisite taste in selection. 

THE ARROW AND THE SONG. 
I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air. 
It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song. 

Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
t found it again in the heart of a friend. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 327 



RESIGNATION. 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

But one dead lamb is there! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair ! 

The air is full of farewells to the dying, 

And mournings for the dead ; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying. 

Will not be comforted 1 

Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 

Not from the ground arise. 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; 

Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers 

May be heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death. 

She is not dead, — the child of our affection, — 

But gone unto that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 

And Christ himself doth rule. 

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, 

By guardian angels led, 
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 

She lives, whom we call dead. 

Day after day we think what she is doing 

In those bright realms of air; 
Tear after year, her tender steps pursuing, 

Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 

The bond which nature gives. 
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken. 

May reach her where she Uvea. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her; 

For when, with raptures wild. 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not bo a child ; 

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion. 

Clothed with celestial grace; 
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion 

Shall wo behold her face. 



328 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



And though at times, impetuous with emotion 

And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, 

That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 

We may not wholly stay : 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing, 

The grief that must have way. 

WEARINESS. 

little feet! that such long years 

Must wander on through hopes and fears, 

Must ache and bleed beneath your load; 
I, nearer to the wayside inn 
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 

Am weary, thinking of your road! 

little hands! that, weak and strong, 
Have still to serve or rule so long. 

Have still so long to give or ask : 
I, who so much with book and pen 
Have toiled among my fellow-men, 

Am weary, thinking of your task. 

little hearts ! that throb and beat 
With such impatient, feverish heat, 

Such limitless and strong desires; 
Mine that so long has glowed and burned, 
With passions into ashes turned 

Now covers and conceals its fires. 

little souls ! as pure and white 
And crystalline as rays of light 

Direct from heaven, their source divine ; 
Refracted through the mist of years, 
How red my setting sun appears. 

How lurid looks this soul of mine ! i 

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, 

Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupation. 
That is known as the Children's Hour. 

I hear in the chamber above me 

The patter of little feet. 
The sound of a door that is opened. 

And voices soft and sweet. 

From my study I see in the lamplight, 

Descending the broad hall stair, 
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegree, 

And Edith with golden hair. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 329 

A whisper, and then a silence; 

Yet I know by their merry eyes 
They are plotting and planning together, 

To take me by surprise. 

A sudden rush from the stairway, 

A sudden mid from the liall ! 
By three doors left unguarded 

They enter my castle wall! 

They climb up into my turret. 

O'er the arms and back of my chair; 
If I try to escape, they surround me ; 

They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses. 

Their arms about me entwine. 
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine 1 

Do you think, blue-eyed banditti. 

Because you have scaled the wall. 
Such an old mustache as I am, 

Is not a match for you all I 

I have you fast in my fortress, 

And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the dungeon. 

In the round-tower of my heart. 

And there will I keep you forever, 

Yes, forever and a day, 
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 

And moulder in dust away! 

Whittiep. 

John Grehnxeaf Whittier, 1808 , is our leading lyric poet, and, 

with the exception perhaps of Byrant, is the one most thoroughly American. 
In Mr. Whittier's poems, the life, the scenes, the characters portrayed, the 
very atmosphere in which they move, are all intensely American. He has 
been called the Quaker Poet, in reference to his religious views and con- 
nections, and he has certainly earned for himself the title of Abolitionist, 
by his fierce anti-slavery philippics. Yet much of his best poetry, and 
especially that of his later years, shows him possessed of a large and truly 
catholic spirit, which finds its way to the heart of every reader. 

Mr. Whittier is a native of Haverhill, Mass., where he passed his boyhood and youth. In 
1829 he beciime editor of the American Manufacturer, a tariff organ. Soon afterwards he 
was editor of the New England We(!kly, of Hartford. In 1836 he removed to Philadrlpliia, 
became a prominent member of the Anti-Slavery Society, and edited, until 1840, their papor, 
The American Freeman. Since that time ho has resided in Ameabury, Mass., as Corre- 
epondiug Editor of The National Era. 

28* 



330 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Whittier is one of the few reformers who have lived to see the fall accomplishment of 
their desires without outliving their sense of thankfulness. By birth a Quaker or Friend, 
he inherited, in all its force, the inveterate Quaker dislike to bondage. In him, however, 
this dislike was not merely passive; it assumed the form of untiring, passionate purpose to 
do battle for his ideal of the right aud just. In this respect, certainly, Whittier ma^' be re- 
garded as a descendant of the old Puritan fighting stock, only liberalized by Quakerism. 
Accordingly we find him, during the greater part of his life, devoting his time and energies 
to the anti-slavery cause, and regarding his poeais — on which his future fame will rest — as 
a secondary matter. 

The Proem, dated November, 1847, contains a graceful and touching confession of poetic 
imperfection, and yet is one of his happiest efforts. Literary history affords scarcely another 
so striking an instance of underestimation of self. 

As a prose writer, Whittier's first separate publication was a collection of essays entitled 
The Stranger in Lowell, 1845. The Legends of New England, however, which appeared 
in 1831, was partly in prose. The Stranger in Lowell was followed by Supernaturalism in 
New England, and by Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, an imaginary description of 
early New England life. In 1850 there appeared a volume entitled Old Portraits and Modern 
Sketches (a collection of ten biographies), and in 1854 a volume of Literary Recreations and 
Miscellanies. But the great bulk of Whittier's prose still lies uncollected in the columns 
of the various papers with which he has been connected. Like almost all controversial 
writing, it has, we may conjecture, lost its literary value with the peculiar institution which 
gave it birth. 

As a poet, Whittier first appeared in 1831, when he published his Legends of New Eng- 
land, in Prose aud Verse. The majority of his early poems were first published as fugitive 
pieces in newspapers and other periodicals, and afterwards re-issued in collections, from 
time to time. Thus appeared The Ballads, 1838; Lays of My Home, 1843; The Voices of 
Freedom, 1849; The Chapel of the Hermits, 1853; The Panorama and Other Poems, 1856; 
Home Ballads, 1860 ; In War Time, 1863 ; National Lyrics, 1865. Hogg Megone and Moll 
Pitcher appeared separately in 1836. 

Whittier's latest productions are Snow-Bound, The Tent on the Beach, Among the Hills, 
and Ballads of New England, which have all appeared since 1866, 

Not only did Whittier serve the anti-slavery cause with the editor's pen ; he devoted to it 
much of his early poetic fire. The Voices of Freedom are a collection of anti-slavery pieces 
of very unequal poetic value. The most defiant is the one entitled Massachusetts to Vir- 
ginia ; the bitterest, perhaps, The Christian Slave. 

Whittier as a poet is too well known to the American reader to call for any elaborate 
analysis of his style. As we turn over the collective edition of his poems, we are astonished 
to see the number of pieces that have become household words. Mogg Megone, Maud Miil- 
ler, The Angels of Buena Vista, The Vaudois Teacher, My Soul and I, A Dream of Summer, 
The Songs of Labor, The Barefoot Boy, Skipper Iresou's Ride, Barbara Frietchie — vrliat a 
host of associations the very names evoke! They, and their twin-brethren, have long since 
passed into the hearts of the poet's countrymen. They are a part of ourselves. If we seek 
for the cause of this real popularity, we shall find one cause of it at least in Whittier's intense 
nationality. Bryant excepted, there is not an American poet who can, in tliis respect, be 
compared with Whittier. Longfellow and Ixiwell, although more richly endowed with the 
poetic faculty, are at the same time more cosmopolitan, more foreign. But setting aside a 
very few songs on borrowed themes, we may say that everything that Whittier has written 
comes directly home to the American. What, for instance, can be more beautiful in its 
genial simplicity and also more characteristic than Snow-Bound, or Among the Hills? 
Snow-Bound, in particular, may safely be ranked among the sweetest, most endearing idyls 
of the language. In it we see the fiery crusader of the Voices of Freedom softened and mel- 
lowed into the retrospective artist. The period of fermentation has passed, the purification 
is complete. Harsh numbers are tuned to perfect accord, hatred of oppression has made 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 331 

way for broad humanity. If we read the Proem of 1847 side by side with Snow-Bound, we 
shall have little difficulty in perstiading ourselves that Whittier has not only nothing to 
fear from a comparison with melodious Spenser and Sidney, but haa even surpassed them 
in artistic reality. 

" Whittier is the most thoroughly American of all our native poets."— ie. Shellon Mackenzie. 

" He seems, in some of his lyrics, to pour out his blood with his lines. There is a rush 
of passion in his verse which sweeps everything along with it." — Whipple. 

" His poetry bursts from his soul with the fire and energy of an ancient prophet." — 
Channing. 

"A vein of genuine teuderness runs through his nature." — HUlard. 

PROEM. 

I love the old melodious lays 
Which softly melt the ages through, 

The songs of Spenser's golden days. 

Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, 
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew. 

Yet, vainly in my quiet hours 
To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; 

I feel them, as the leaves and flowers 
^ In silence feel the dewy showers, 

And drink with glad still lips the blessings of the sky. 

The rigor of a frozen clime, 
The harshness of an untaught ear, 

The jarring words of one whose rhyme 

Beat often Labor's hurried time. 
Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, are here. 

Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
No rounded art the lack supplies; 

Unskilled the subtle lines to trace. 

Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes. 

Nor mine the seer-like power to show 
The secrets of the heart and mind ; 

To drop the plummet-line below 

Our common world of joy and woe, 
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 

Yet here at least an earnest sense 
Of human right and weal is shown ; 

A hate of tyranny intense. 

And hearty in its vehemence, 
As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 

Freedom! if to me belong 
Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 

Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, 

Still, with a love as deep and strong 
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gift on thy shrine. 



332 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

IN SCHOOL DAYS, 
Still sits the school-house by the road, 

A ragged beggar sunning ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, • 

And blackberry vines are running. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 

Deep scarred by raps oflBcial ; 
The warping floor, the battered seats, 
"^ The jack-knife's carved initial — 

The charcoal frescoes on its walls. 
Its door's worn sill, betraying 

The feet that, creeping slow to school. 
Went storming out to playing I 

Long years ago a winter's sun 
Shone over it at setting; 

Lit up its western window-panes. 
And low eaves' icy fretting. 

It touched the tangled golden curls. 
And brown eyes full of grieving, 

Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy 
Her childish favor singled. 

His cap pulled low upon a face 
Where pride and shame were mingled. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right and left he lingered, 

As restlessly her tiny hands 
The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 

And heard the trembling of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing. 

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word; 

I hate to go above you. 
Because" — the brown eyes lower fell — 

" Because, you see, I love you ! " 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing; 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing! 

He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
How few who pass above him 

Lament their triumph and his loss 
Like her — because they love him. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 333 

Bryant. 

William Cullen Bryant, 1794 , by the publication of Thanatop- 

sis, acquired, almost sixty years ago, a national reputation as a poet, and he 
has continued at brief intervals ever since to add to his laurels by some new 
effort, showing that his fire is not yet extinct, nor his vigor abated. His 
poems are not so numerous or so varied as those of Whittier or Longfellow, 
yet he is as clearly among the great poets that every American involun- 
tarily claims as a part of the national inheritance. 

Mr. Bryant is a native of Massachusetts. He publislied two poems, The Embargo, a po- 
litical satire, and The Spanish Revolution, in 180S, he being then only fourteen years old. 
He has been before the public, therefore, more than sixty years. Thanatopsis, the most 
perfect of all his poems, and the one best known, first appeared in 1817. It was written 
when he was but eighteen years old. His largest poem, The Ages, a survey of the experience 
of mankind, appeared in 1821. 

Mr. Bryant is by profession a lawyer, but he early abandoned the profession for that of 
journalism, and since 1826 he has been editor of the New York Evening Post. 

He visited Europe in 1834, in 1845, and in 1849, the last time extending his journey to 
Egypt and Syria. , His communications to the Post during these journeys were republished 
in a volume, called Letters of a Traveller. In 1857-58, he again visited Europe, producing 
Letters from Spain and other countries. He has resided, since 1845, at Roslyn, L. I. 

Mr. Bryant's poems have appeared from time to time as occasional contributions to the maga- 
zines, and have had a singular uniformity of excellence. They all show care and finish, and 
original observation. No English poet, living or dead, has been a more accurate observer of 
nature, as any one may prove who will take a volume of his poems out into the woods and 
fields, and read the descriptions in the very presence of what is described. " Bryant's writings 
transport us into the depths of the solemn primeval forest, to the shores of the lonely lake, 
the banks of the wild nameless stream, or the brow of the rocky upland, rising like a promon- 
tory from amidst a wide ocean of foliage ; while they shed around us the glories of a climate 
fierce in the extremes, but splendid in all its vicissitudes." — Washington Irving. 

"One effect of Bryant's faithful observation, of which we have spoken, is, that his poems 
are strictly American. They are American in their subjects, imagery, and spirit. Scarcely 
any other than one born in this country can appreciate all their merit, so strongly marked 
are they by the peculiarities of our national scenery, our social feelings, and our national 
connections. What the author has seen, or what has been wrought in his own mind, he has 
written, and no more. His skies are not brought from Italy, nor his singing-birds from the 
tropics, nor his forests from Germany or regions beyond the pole. He is not indebted to the 
patient study of books so much as to the calm communion with outward things. He haa 
levied no contributions on the masters of foreign literature, nor depended upon the locked 
up treasures of ancient genius for the materials of thought and expressions. He has written 
from the moviugs of his own mind ; he has uttered what he haa felt and known ; he has de- 
scribed things around him in fitting terms, terms suggested by familiar contemplation, and 
thus his writings have become transcripts of external nature, appreciated by his country- 
men with the readiness and ease with which truth is ever recognized." — Parke Gadvnn. 

WAITING BY THE GATE. 
Beside a massive gateway built up in years gone by, 
Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadows lie, 
While streams the evening sunshine on quiet wood and lea, 
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me. 



334 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The tree-tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight, 

A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night; 

I hear the woodthrush piping one mellow descant more, 

And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day is o'er. 

Behold the portals open, and o'er the threshold, now, 
There steps a weary one with a pale and furrowed brow ; 
His count of years is full, his allotted task is wrought; 
He passes to his rest from a place that needs him not. 

In sadness then I ponder how quickly fleets the hour 
Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power. 
I muse while still the woodthrush sings down the golden day, 
And as I look and listen the sadness wears away. 

Again the hinges turn, and a youth, departing, throws 
A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully goes ; 
A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from her hair, 
Moves mournfully away from amidst the young and fair. 

Oh glory of our race that so suddenly decays! 
Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze!. 
Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air 
Scatters a moment's sweetness and flies we know not where! 

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn; 
But still the sun shines round me: the evening birds sing on, 
And I again am soothed, and, beside the ancient gate, 
In this soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand and wait. 

Once more the gates are opened; an infant group go out, 
The sweet smile quenched forever, and stilled the sprightly shont. 
Oh frail, frail tree of Life, that upon the greensward strowa 
Its fair young buds unopened, with every wind that blows 1 

So come from every region, so enter, side by side, 
The strong and faint of spirit, the meek and men of pride. 
Steps of earth's great and mighty, between those pillars gray, 
And prints of little feet, mark the dust along the way. 

And some approach the threshold whose looks are blank with fear, 
And some whose temples brighten with joy in drawing near. 
As if they saw dear faces, and caught the gracious eye 
Of Him, the Sinless Teacher, who came for us to die. 

I mark the joy, the terror ; yet these, within my heart, 
Can neither wake the dread nor the longing to depart; 
And, in the sunshine streaming on quiet wood and lea, 
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me. 

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE-TREE. 

Come, let us plant the apple-tree. 
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; 
Wide let its hollow bed be made ; 
There gently lay the roots, and there 
Sift the dark mould with kindly care, 

And press it o'er them tenderly, 



il 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME, 336 

As, round the Bleeping infant's feet 
We softly fold the cradle sheet ; 
So plant we the apple-tree. 

What plant we in this apple-tree? 
Buds, which the breath of summer days 
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays ; 
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast. 
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest ; 

We plant, upon the sunny lea, 
A shadow for the noontide hour, 
A shelter from the summer shower, 

When we plant the apple-tree. 

WTiat plant we in this apple-tree? 
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs, 
To load the May-wind's restless wings, 
When, from the orchard row, he pours 
Its fragrance through its open doors; 

A world of blossoms for the bee. 
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, 
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, 

We plant with the apple-tree. 

WTiat plant we in this apple-tree? 
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, 
And redden in the August noon, 
And drop, when gentle airs come by. 
That fan the blue September sky. 

While children come, with cries of glee. 
And seek them where the fragrant grass 
Betrays their bed to those who pass, 

At the foot of the apple-tree. 

And when, above this apple-tree. 
The winter stars are quivering bright, 
And winds go howling through the night, 
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth, 
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth. 

And guests in prouder homes shall see. 
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine, 
And golden orange of the line, 

The fruit of the apple-tree. 

The fruitage of this apple-tree 
Winds, and our flag of stripe and star 
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar. 
Where men shall wonder at the view, 
And ask in what fair groves they grew; 

And sojourners beyond tlie sea 
Shall think of childhood's careless day. 
And long, long hours of summer play, 

la the shade of the apple-tree. 



336 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Each year shall give this apple-tree 
A broader flush of roseate bloom, 
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, 
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, 
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower. 

The years shall come and pass, but we 
Shall hear no longer, where we lie, 
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, 

In the boughs of the apple-tree. 

And time shall waste this apple-tree — 
Oh ! when its aged branches throw 
Thin shadows on the ground below. 
Shall fraud and force and iron will 
Oppress the weak and helpless still? 

What shall the tasks of mercy be. 
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears 
Of those who live when length of years 

Is wasting this apple-tree? 

"'Who planted this old apple-tree?" 
The children of that distant day 
Thus to some aged man shall say; 
And gazing on its mossy stem, 
The gray-haired man shall answer them: 

"A poet of the land was he, 
Born in the rude but good old times ; 
'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes 

On planting the apple-tree." 

Boker. 

George Henry Boker, 1824 -, has succeeded better than any other 

American author in the difficult line of dramatic composition. His prin- 
cipal plays, Calaynos, Anne Boleyn, Leonor de Guzman, and Francesca da 
Eimini, tragedies, are all conceived on the highest type of the regular 
drama, and are truly classical performances. In addition to his dramatic 
compositions, he has written several other long poems, besides numerous 
short lyrics of great excellence. 

Mr. Boker is a native and a resident of Philadelphia, son of a wealthy banker of that city. 
He graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1842, and studied law, but has never practised. 
His first appearance as an author was in 1847, when he published The Lesson of Life and 
Other Poems. This first publication, crude and imperfect as in many respects it was, con- 
tained at the same time distinct indications of latent power, though not of that high and 
varied power which the author has since exhibited. Mr. Boker has not been a prolific 
writer, yet something considerable from his pen every few years shows that he has not been 
idle; and every new addition to his list of works has been such as to increase the adraii-a- 
tion of the public for his poetic genius. Carefully avoiding whatever is of a sensational 
character, and resolutely refusing to cater to a false tsiste, even at the risk of some loss of 
temporary notoriety, he has wrought slowly and laboriously, after the highest ideals of ex- 
cellence, calmly awaiting the final verdict of assured success. The tendency of his mind, 
as already remarked, is towards the dramatic form of composition, and his first signal suc- 
cess, the tragedy of Calaynos, was in that line. As a lyric poet, however, and especially as 



FBOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 337 

a writer of Sonnets, his merits are of a high order. The following is a list of his principiJ 
publications: Calaynos, a Tragedy ; Anne Boleyn, a Tragedy ; Leonor dc Guzman, a Tragedy; 
The Betrothal ; The Podesta's Daughter ; The Ivory Carver ; A Ballad of Sir John Franklin ; 
Song of the Earth ; Street Lyrics ; and a large number of Sonnets, Songs, and minor poems. 

Besides his poetical works, Mr. Boker has written a goodly amount of vigorous and stir- 
ring prose. Most of this has been in the form of lleports of the Union League, of which 
from its origin he was annually elected Secretary. No abler political manifestoes have ap- 
peared in all the stirring times, from 1861 to 1871, than those documents put forth during 
and after the war by George 11. Boker, Secretary of the Union League. 

In 1871, Mr. Boker received the appointment of United States Minister to Coustautiuople. 

TO LOUIS NAPOLEON. — A SONNET. 

O, shameless thief! a nation trusted thee 

With all the wealth her bleeding hands had won. 

Proclaimed thee guardian of her liberty: 

So proud a title never lay upon 
Thy uncle's forehead: thou wast linked with one, 

First President of France, whose name shall be 

Fixed in the heavens, like God's eternal sun — 

Second to him alone — to Washington ! 
Was it for thee to stoop unto a crown 7 

Pick up the Bourbon's leavings ? yield thy height 

Of simple majesty, and totter down, 
Full of discovered frailties — sorry sight! — 

One of a mob of kings ? or, baser grown, 

Was it for thee to steal it in the night? 
1852. 

THE GROCER'S DAUGHTER. 

Stop, stop ! and look through the dusty pane. — 
She 's gone ! — Nay, hist ! again I have caught her : 

There is the source of my sighs of pain, 
There is my idol, the Grocer's Daughter 1 

**A child! no woman!" A bud, no flower: 

But think, when a year or more has brought her 
Its ripening roundness, how proud a dower 

Of charms will bloom iu the Grocer's Daughter 1 

I have a love for the flower that blows. 

One for the bud that needs sun and water; 
The fii-st because it is now a rose, 

The other will be, — like the Grocer's Daughter. 

She stood in the door, as I passed to-day, 

And mine and a thousand glances sought her, — 
Like a star from heaven with equal ray. 

On all alike, shone the Grocer's Daughter. 

Mark how the sweetest on earth can smile. 

As yon patient drudge, yon coarse-browed porter, 
Eases his burdened back, the while 

Keeping his eyes on the Grocer's Daughter. 

29 W 



338 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Now, look ye! I who have mnch to lose, — 
Bank, wealth, and friends — like the load he brought het^ 

Would toss them under her little shoes 

To win that smile from the Grocers Daughter. 

ITU SICK 0^ LIFE, I'M WEARY. 

I sit beneath the sunbeam's glow. 
Their golden cm-rents round me flow. 
Their mellow kisses warm my brow. 

But all the world is dreary. 
The vernal meadow round me blooms. 
And flings to me its faint perfumes; 
Its breath is like an opening tomb's — 
I 'm sick of life, I 'm weary ! 

The mountain brook skips down to me. 
Tossing its silver tresses free. 
Humming like one in revery ; 

But, ah I the sound is dreary — 
The trilling blue-birds o'er me sail. 
There 's music in the faint-voieed gale ; 
All sound to me a mourner's wail — 

I 'm ack of life, I 'm weary. 

The night leads forth the starry train, 
^ The glittering moonbeams fall like rain. 

There's not a shadow on the plain; 

Yet all the scene is dreary. 
The sunshine is a mockery, 
The solemn moon stares moodily; 
Alike is day or night to me — 
I 'm sick of life, I 'm weary. 

I know to some the world is fair. 
For them there's music in the air, 
And shapes of beauty everywhere ; 

But all to me is dreary. 
I know in me the sorrows lie 
^ That blunt my ear, and dim my eye; 

I cannot weep, I fain would die — 
I 'm sick of life, I 'm weary. 

A SONNET. 

Not when the buxom form which Nature wears 
Is pregnant with the lusty warmth of Spring; 

Nor when hot Summer, sunk with what she bears, 
Lies panting in her flowery offering; 

Nor yet when dusty Autumn sadly fares 
In tattered garb, through which the shrewd winds sing, 

To bear her treasures to the griping snares 
Hard Winter set for the poor bankrupt thing; 

Not even when Winter, heir of all the year. 
Seals, like a miser, round his niggard board. 
The 'brimming plenty of bis luscious hoard : 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 339 

No, not in Nature, change she howsoe'er. 
Can I find perfect type or worthy peer 
Of the fair maid iu whom my heart is stored. 

Buchanan ^Read. 

Thomas Buchanan Read, 1822-1872, is almost equally celebrated as 
an artist and a poet, and is familiarly known as the Poet-Painter. He pub- 
lished several long poems, as The New Pastoral, and The House by the 
Sea, but the short lyrics contained in his Lays and Ballads are those on 
which chiefly his reputation rests. 

Mr. Read was born at Chester, Pa. At the age of fourteen he went to Cincinnati, and 
became a pupil of the sculptor, Clevenger. On the departure of Clevenger to Europe, Read 
turned his attention to painting, and soou acquired considerable reputation. In 1840, he 
went to Boston, where he spent five years, dividing his time between painting and poetry, 
and gaining favor in both departments of effort. The next four years were spent in like 
manner in Philadelphia. In 1850 he visited Italy and passed a year at Florence. He went 
to Italy again in 1853, and remained there several years, having orders from America for 
pictures enough to fill up his time. After returning from Italy, he resided partly in Phila- 
delphia, and partly in Cincinnati. The last few years of his life were spent in Rome, follow- 
ing his profession as a painter. On his return home, in May, 1872, he was attacked with 
pleuro-pneumonia, and died in New York, after an illness of two weeks. 

Mr. Read's literary works have almost kept pace with his works as an artist. His chief 
publications have been the following: The Female Poets of America, a large pictorial vol- 
ume, iu which the portraits were painted and the biographical and critical notices and selec- 
tions were all made by himself; Lays and- Ballads ; The Pilgrims of the Great St. Bernard, a 
Prose Romance ; The New Pastoral ; The House by the Sea; The Wagoner of the AUeghanies; 
A Voyage to Ireland, etc. 

Mr. Read's shorter pieces have been collected and published in various forms, both in Eng- 
land and the United States, and have received the warmest commendations. They consti- 
tute indeed his highest claims to fame. His lyrics are his greatest works. Sheridan's Ride 
is one of the few things written during the heat of the war that is likely to survive. Others 
of his short pieces, though not so widely known as this, are hardly inferior to it in merit. 

No writer of the present age, except Tennyson, has so delicate a fancy, or such wonderful 
nicety iu the use of words. This exquisite delicacy in the use of words is the more remark- 
able in Mr. Read's case from the fact that his advantages of early education were very 
limited. It seems to grow out of the native poetical faculty of the man, which instinctively 
selects with infinitesimal precision exactly the right words to express its own airy fancies. 

" At his house In Florence and Rome, he was the centre of a large social circle, dispensing 
an elegant hospitality on the most generous scale, and unwearied in his attentions to Ameri- 
cans who made a temporary sojourn in those capitals. His studio in Rome, especially, dur- 
ing the last few years, was the resort of numerous American and English vi.sitors, together 
with many distinguished personages from various European countries, who learned to prize 
his portraits and other productions of his pencil for the delicate refinement of their execu- 
tion and the soft ideal c)iarm which he threw around hia favorite subjects. Ills chief pleas- 
ure was in the delineation of scenes of aerial lightness and grace, tbotigh diversified at 
times by such pieces as his vigorous portrait of Sheridan and his Horse, which has at- 
tained almost equal celebrity with his singularly popular poem on Slieridan's Ride. His 
most successful paintings are, perhaps, Undine, The Lost Pleiad, The Star of Bethlehem, 
Water Sprite, Longfellow's Children." — New York Tribune. 



340 AMERICAN LITERATURE 

THE DESERTED ROAD. 

Ancient road, that wind'st deserted^ 

Through the level of the vale, 
Sweeping toward the crowded market 

Like a stream without a sail; 

• 

Standing by thee, I look backward. 
And, as in the light of dreams, 

See the years descend and vanish 
Like thy whitely-tented teams. 

Here I stroll along the village, 
As in youth's departed morn; 

But I miss the crowded coaches, 
And the driver's bugle-horn — 

Miss the crowd of jovial teamsters 
Filling buckets at the wells, 

"With their wains from Conestoga, 
And their orchestras of bells. 

To the merry wayside tavern 
Comes the noisy throng no more ; 

And the faded sign, complaining, 
Swings unnoticed at the door. 

While the old decrepit tollman, 
Waiting for the few who pass, 

Reads the melancholy story 
In the thickly springing grass. 

Ancient highway, thou art vanquish'd ; 

The usurper of the vale 
Rolls in fiery, iron rattle. 

Exultations on the gale. 

Thou art vanquish'd and neglected; 

But the good which thou hast done, 
Though by man it be forgotten. 

Shall be deathless as the sun. 

Though neglected, gray, and grassy, 
Still I pray that my decline 

May be through as vernal valleys 
And as blest a calm as thine. 



John G. Saxe. 



John Godfrey Saxe, LL.D., 1816 — — , has a national reputation aa 
a humorous poet. His poem of The Proud Miss McBride is familiar to 
every reader. 

Mr. Saxe is a native of Vermont, and a graduate of Middlebury College, of the class of 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 341 

1839. He studied law and practised for a time, but afterwards abandoned the profession Tor 
that of literature. He is widely known also as a lecturer. Until his fame was somewhat 
overshadowed by Artemus 'Ward, he might have been called the most popular humorous 
writer of America. Prominent among his poems are Progress, The Proud Miss McBride, 
The Money King, Rhyme of the Rail, The Flying Dutchman, The Masquerade, etc. 

Mr. S;ixe excels in light, easy verse, and in unexpected, if not absolutely punning, turns of 
expression. His more elaborate productions are not so successful. In the general style and 
effect of certain of his comic pieces he strongly reminds one of Thomas Hood. Saxe, it must 
be observed, is one of the very fe-w thoroughly national poets, in this sense, that his themes 
and the atmosphere of his verse are almost exclusively American. This, however, is perhaps 
a general rule applicable to all humorous and satirical poets, who most be local and national 
to be acceptable. 

Mr. Saxe at present ia living at Albany, editing the Evening Journal of that city. 

RHYME OF THE RAIL. 

Singing through the forests, 

Rattling over ridges, 
Shooting under arches, 

Rumbling over bridges, 
Whizzing through the mountains, 

Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
Bless me ! this is pleasant, 

Riding on the rail ! 

Men of different " stations " 

In the eye of Fame 
Here are very quickly 

Coming to the same. 
High and lowly people,' 

Birds of every feather,' 
On a common level 

Travelling together 1 

Gentlemen in shorts. 

Looming very tall ; 
Gentlemen at large, 

Talking very small; 
Gentlemen in tights, 

With a loose-ish mein 
Gentlemen in gray. 

Looking rather green. 

Gentlemen quite old, 

Asking for the news; 
Gentlemen in black 

In a tit of blues; 
Gentlemen in claret 

Sober as a vicar; 
Gentlemen in tweed 

Dreadfully in liquor! 

29* 



342 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Stranger on the right, 

Looking very sunny, 
Obviously reading 

Something rather funny. 
Now the smiles are thicker. 

Wonder what they mean? 
Faith, he's got the Knickee- 

BocKER Magazine! 

Stranger on the left, 

Closing up his peepers; 
Now he moves amain, 

Like the Seven Sleepers; 
At his feet a volume 

Gives the explanation. 
How the man grew stupid 

From " Association " ! 

Ancient maiden lady 

Anxiously remarks. 
That there must be peril 

'Mong so many sparks. 
Eoguish-looking fellow, 

Turning to the stranger, 
Says it's his opinion 

She is out of danger 1 

Woman with a baby, 

Sitting vis-a-vis; 
Baby keeps a squalling, 

Woman looks at me ; 
Asks about the distance, 

Says it's tiresome talking, 
Noises of the cars 

Are so very shocking! 

Market-woman careful 

Of the precious casket, 
Knowing eggs are eggs 

Tightly holds her basket, 
Feeling that a smash, 

If it came, would surely 
Send her eggs to pot 

Rather prematurely ! 

Singing through the forests, 

Rattling over ridges, 
Shooting under arches, 

Rumbling over bridges. 
Whizzing through the mountains, 

Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
Bless me ! this is pleasant, 

Biding on the rail! 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 313 

Thomas W. Parsons, M. D., 1819 , is a native and resident of Boston. He is an accom- 
plished and schol;a-Iy man, who has enriched his miud by foreign travel, and has given proofs 
of his culture aud of his poetic abilities by his translations from Dante and by original poems 
of great merit. He has published The Inferno of Dante, a new metrical version of extraor- 
dinary excellence ; and two volumes of miscellaneous Poems. " His verses are clear alike 
to the ear and the brain, and their old-fashioned music is in keeping with their vigorous 
eense, fine humor, sharp but not unequal wit, and delicate though always manly senti- 
ment." — Grisioold-. *' The book displays more culture than enthusiiusm, — more of the poetic 
art than of poetic fire. Its author shows a rare wealth of resource derived equally from 
study aud from travel, —from classic fountains and from the literature aud life of the pres- 
ent day." — A. P. Peabodt/, D. D., in Ike North AmericoH Review. 

Dr. Holland. 

JosiAH Gilbert Hoi.l,and, M. D., 1819 , after becoming widely 

and favorably known as a prose writer, under the name of Timothy Tit- 
comb, rose suddenly to fame as a poet, by the publication of two poems, 
Bitter Sweet, and Kathrina. Both these poems, especially the latter, were 
received with an immediate and general favor almost unprecedented. 

Dr. Holland is a native of Belchertown, Mass. He practised medicine for a time, and was 
for one year superintendent of schools in Vicksburg, Miss. From 1849 to 1866, he was asso- 
ciate editor of the Springfield Republican, Mass. In 1870, he became editor of Scribner'a 
Monthly, which position he still holds. 

Dr. Holland's publications are the following: History of Western Massachusetts, 2 vols., 
1855 ; The Bay Path, a tale of New England Colonial Life, 1857 ; Letters to Young People, 
Single and Married, by Timothy Titcomb, 1858; Bitter Sweet, a poem, 1858; Gold Foil, 
Hammered from Popular Proverbs, 1859; Miss Gilbert's Career, an American Story, 1860; 
Lessons in Life, 1861 ; Letters to the Joneses, 1863 ; Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects, 1865; 
The. Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1866; Kathrina, Her Life and Mine, a poem, 1867. 

As a prose writer. Dr. Holland is admitted by all to be one of our best. As a poet, he has 
received much adverse, and some unkind criticism. His Kathrina doubtless is open to criti- 
cism. Yet it is idle to deny to this poem great and distinguishing merit. The author, at 
all events, may console himself with the fact, that while the critics flout, the people re;id 
and buy. No American poem, with the single exception of Longfellow's Hiawatha, has hiul 
such tangible evidences of popularity. The sale of Kathrina in the first six months was 
40,000 copies, and it has since gone beyond 60,000. Many of Dr. Holland's other works have 
enjoyed a like popularity. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836- , is a native of Portsraonth, N. H. He has contributed, 

in prose and verse, to the Atlantic, Harper's, Knickerbocker, and otber periodicals, weekly 
and monthly, and is at present one of the editors of the Home Journal. He has published 
Poems; Pampinea and Other Poems; Ballad of Babie Bell and Other Poems; Out of his 
Head, a Romance ; Daisy's Necklace ; The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth ; and 
The Story of a Bad Boy. 

The Ballad of Babie Bell gave the author immediate and general favor. It shows a deli- 
cate fancy, as well as a fine command of language, and makes its appeal to the domestic 
affections in a way that is sure to awaken a kind response. He is at present, 1872, editor 
of Every Saturday. 



344 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

BABIE BELL. 



Have yon not heard the poets tell 
How came the dainty Babie Bell 

Into this world of ours? 
The gates of heaven were left ajar: 

With folded hands and dreamy eyes. 

Wandering out of Paradise, 
She saw this planet, like a star, 

Hung in the purple depths of even — 
Its bridges, running to and fro, 
O'er which the white-winged angels go, 

Bearing the holy dead to heaven ! 

She touched a bridge of flowers — those feet. 
So light they did not bend the bells 
Of the celestial aspodels ! 
They fell like dew upon the flowers. 

And all the air grew strangely sweet ! 
And thus carae dainty Babie Bell 

Into this world of ours. 



She came and brought delicious May. 

The swallows built beneath the eaves; 

Like sunlight in and out the leaves. 
The robins went, the livelong day ; 
The lily swung its noiseless bell. 

And o'er the porch the trembling vine 

Seemed bursting with its veins of wine! 
How sweetly, softly, twilight fell ! 
0, earth was full of singing birds. 

And happy spring-tide flowers. 
When the dainty Babie Bell 

Came to this world of ours! 



O Babie, dainty Babie Bell, 

How fair she grew from day to day I 
What woman nature filled her eyes. 

What poetry within them lay! 
Those deep and tender twilight eyes. 

So full of meaning, pure and bright^ 

As if she yet stood in the light 
Of those oped gates of Paradise ! 
And we loved Babie more and more: 
Ah! never in onr hearts before 

Was love so lovely born : 
We felt we had a link between 
This real world and that unseen — 

The land beyond the morn t 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 345 

And for the love of those dear eyes, 

For love of her whom God led forth, 

(The mother's being ceased on earth 
When Babie came from Paradise) — 
For love of Him \7ho smote our lives, 

And woke the chords of joy and pain, 
We said, Sweet Christ! — our hearts bent down 

Like violets after rain. 

rv. 
And now the orchards, which in June 

Were white and rosy in their bloom — 
Filling the crystal veins of air 

With gentle pulses of perfume — 
Were rich in Autumn's mellow prime: 
The plums were globes of honeyed wine, 
The hived sweets of summer time ! 
The ivory chestnut burst its shell : 
The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell I 
The grapes were purpling in the grange, 
And time brought just as rich a change 

In little Babie Bell. 
Her tiny form more perfect grew. 

And in her features we could trace, 

In softened curves, her mother's face ! 
Her angel-nature ripened too. 
We thought her lovely when she came, 

But she was holy, saintly now. . . . 

Around her pale angelic brow 
We saw a slender ring of flame 1 



God's hand had taken away the seal 

Which held the portals of her speech; 
And oft she said a few strange words 

Whose meaning lay beyond our reach; 
She never was a child to us, 

We never held her being's key: 
We could not teach her holy things: 

She was Christ's self in purity I 



It came upon us by degrees: 
We saw its shadow ere it fell, 

The knowledge that our God had sent 
Ilis messenger for Babie Bell. 

Wo shuddered with unlanguaged pain, 
And all our hopes wore changed to fears, 
And all our thoughts ran into tears, 

Like sunshine into rain. 

We cried aloud in our belief, 
"0, smite us gently, gently, God I 
Teach us to bond and kiss the rod, 

And perfect grow through grief." 



346 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 

Ah, how we loved her, God can tell ; 
Her little heart was cased in ours: 
Our hearts are broken, Babie Bell ! 

VII. 

At last he came, the messenger. 

The messenger from unseen lands: 
And what did dainty Babie Bell ? 

She only crossed her little hands, 
She only looked more meek and fair! 
We parted back her silken hair; 
We laid some buds upon her brow. 
White buds, the summer's drifted snow — 

Death's bride arrayed in flowers! 
And thus went dainty Babie Bell 

Out of this world of ours ! 



James T. Fields. 

James T. Fields, 1820 , the well-known Boston bookseller, is the 

author of two volumes of poems and of a series of charming prose sketches, 
called Yesterdays with Authors. 

Mr. Fields is a native of Portsmouth, N. H. He came to Boston in 1833, and engaged as 
clerk in the bookselling house of Carter & Hendee, corner of Washington and School Streets. 
There, and in the quarters recently occupied in Tremont Street, he followed the vocation 
of bookselling and publishing until his retirement from business in 1870, the firm changing 
successively to Allen & Ticknor ; Ticknor, Reed <fe Fields ; Ticknor & Fields ; Fields, Osgood 
& Co., and lastly, J. R. Osgood & Co. The history of this house, and of Mr. Fields, for nearly 
forty years its presiding genius, is a history of much of the most brilliant literature of the 
country during that period. The literary record of Everett, Prescott, Whittier, Bryant, 
Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson, Dana, Halleck, Lowell, Whipple, Hillard, Sum- 
ner, Parsons, Sprague, Mrs. Stowe, Bayard Taylor, and a long list of others, is connected 
with the operations of this house. Mr. Fields has had more to do also, probably, than any 
other American belonging to the craft, with the most distinguished English authi)rs, such as 
Wordsworth, De Quincey, Thackeray, Dickens, Reade, the Brownings, and others. Since 
retiring from the business, he has written a series of delightful reminiscences of some of 
these distinguished writers, under the title of Yesterdays with Authors. 

Mr. Fields published a volume of Poems in 1849, and another in 1855, called A Few Verses 
for a Few Friends. Among his poems are Commerce, read before the Boston Mercantile 
Association in 1838, and another called The Post of Honor, before the same body in 1848. 

Rev. Charles T. Brooks, 1813 , minister of the Unitarian church at Newport, R. L, 

•was born at Salem, Mass., graduated at Harvard, in 1832; and settled in Newport in 1837. 
He is an accomplished German scholar, and has gained a high reputation by his poetical 
versions of some of the best German classics, Goethe, Schiller, Jean Paul Richter, etc. His 
chief publications are Schiller's William Tell, Mary Stuart, and Maid of Orleans; Richter's 
Titan, and Hesperus; Goethe's Faust; Leopold Scliefer's liayman's Breviary; Puck's Miglity 
Pranks; Specimens of German Song; German Lyrics, etc. Also, he has published, of bis 
own poems, Songs of Field and Flood ; Eight Months on the Ocean and Eight Weeks in 
India; The Old Stone Mill in Newport; and the Simplicity of Christ, a volume of Sermons. 

William Allen ButleIi, 1825 , a lawyer in the city of New York, ha« occasionally 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 347 

turned aside from his professional occupations, for the purpose of satirizing some of the 
follies of the day. His poem, Nothing to Wear, which was a sharp but good-natured satire 
upon women's dress, was received with great applause. Some of his other pieces, in a similar 
vein, are Two Millions, and General Average, the last being aimed at some of the sharp 
practices in mercantile life. 

William II. Burleigh, 1812-1871, a native of Woodstock, Conn., and a magazine writer, 
published a volume of Poems, and contributed a good deal to periodical literature. 

Augustine J. H. Duganne, 1823 , is a native of Boston. Ho has contributed largely 

to periodical literature, both in prose and verse, though chiefly known as a poet. His sepa- 
rate publications are: Comprehensive Summary of General Philosophy; Chiss Book of Gov- 
ernments and Civil Society; Revised Leaves, a series of critiques on contemporary writers, 
published originallj' in Sartain's Magazine; Parnassus in Pillory, a satire; The Gospel of 
Labor, a poem; The Mission of Intellect, a poem; The Iron Harp; The True Republic; The 
Lydian Queen, a Tragedy, played at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia; Home Poems. 
•'Mr. Duganne's lyrical powers are characterized by a nervous energy, a generous sympathy 
with humanity, a wonderful command of language, and an ardent hatred of usury and op- 
pression in all their forms."— TFI H. Burleigh. 

Thomas Duxn English, M.D., 1819 , has contributed largely to magazine literature, 

and published, in 1855, a volume of poems. One of these, Ben Bolt, has had an extensive 
popularity. He h;is also published a novel, called Walter Wolfe. 

Charles Gayler, 1820 , dramatist, is a native of New York. He began writing for the 

Btage while in Cincinnati, editing a newspaper. He returned to New York in 1850, and has 
been connected with the periodical press of that city. He has written a large number of 
dramatic pieces. Among those which have been published are The Gold Hunters, a Drama; 
The Frightened Friend, an Operetta; Taking the Chances, a Comedy ; The Love of a Prince, 
a Comedy ; The Son of the Night, a Drama; Isms, a Comedy; Galieno Faliero, a Tragedy. 

Thomas Powell, 1809 , is a native of London. He emigrated to the United States in 

1849, and since that time has resided chiefly in New York, engaged in literary pursuits, 
chiefly as a writer for the stage. The following are the titles of some of his dramatic pieces : 
The Wife's Revenge, Marguerita, True at Last, Love's Re^icue, The Shepherd's Well, The 
Blind Wife. He has written also. The Living Authors of England, The Living Authors of 
America, Tales from Boccaccio, Florentine Tales, Chit Chat, The Ambassador's Daughter (a 
romance), and several volumes of Poems. Mr. Powell has been an industrious contributor 
to a large number of papers and magazines, both in England and in the United States. 



Alfred B. Street. 

Alfred Billings Street, 1811 , is one of the best descriptive 

poets of which American literature has to boast. His descriptions of forest 
life, especially, are wonderfully graphic and true to nature. His longest 
work, Frontenac, is a narrative poem, being a tale of the Iroquois. The 
poem which ia best known, and which on the whole is the most effective, is 
the Gray Forest-Eagle, a part of which is quoted below. 

Mr. Street was born at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. He studied law and practised for a few years. 
Since 1839 he ha.s resided at Albany, where he has been for some years State Librarian. The 
fo11o\%ing are his principal publications: The Burning of Schenectady and Other Poema, 



348 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

1842 ; Drawings and Tintings, 1844; Fugitive Poems, 1846 ; Frontenac, a metrical romance, 
1819 ; Woods and Waters, or the Saranacs and Rucket, 1860 ; Forest Pictures in the Adiron- 
dacs, 1864 ; Poems, 1866. He has also written some historical and statistical works. 

" In a foreign land, his poems would transport us at once to home. He is no second-hand 
limner, content to furnish insipid copies, but draws from reality. His pictures havt, the 
freshness of originals. They are graphic, detailed, never untrue and often vigorous. He is 
essentially an American poet. In England we notice that these qualities have been recog- 
nized. His Lost Hunter has been finely illustrated there, thus affording the best evidence 
of the picturesque fertility of his muse. His Gray Forest-Eagle is a noble lyric, full of 
spirit; his Forest Scenes are minutely and at the same time elaborately true." — H. T. 
Tuckerman, 

THE GRAY FOREST-EAGLE. 

With storm-daring pinion and sun-gazing eye, 

The gray forest-eagle is king of the sky! 

0, little he loves the green valley of flowers, 

Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours, 

For he hears in those haunts only music, and sees 

Only rippling of waters and waving of trees; 

Tliere the red-robin warbles, the honey-bee hums, 

The timid quail whistles, the sly partridge drums; 

And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along, 

There's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song; 

The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss. 

And there's naught but his shadow black gliding across; 

But the dark gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam, 

Of the fierce, rock-lashed torrent, he claims as his home : 

There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood, 

And the many- voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood; 

From the crag-grasping fir-top where morn hangs its wreath, 

He views the mad waters while writhing beneath : 

On a limb of that moss-beared hemlock far down, 

With bright azure mantle and gray mottled crown, 

The kingfisher watches, where o'er him his foe. 

The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low; 

Now poised are those pinious and pointed that beak. 

His dread swoop is ready, when, hark ! with a shriek, 

His eye-balls red-blazing, high bristled his crest, 

His snake-like neck arch'd, talons drawn to his breast. 

With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light. 

The gray forest-eagle shoots down in his flight; 

One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck. 

The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck; 

And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high 

With his prey soars the eagle, and melts in the sky. 

Rev. Siunet Dyer, 1814 , a Baptist preacher and writer of high standing, was bom at 

White Creek, Wai=hington County, N. Y., but while yet a child went with his father to the 
" Black River Country," New York, and settled near Brownsville, where he enjoyed such 
advantages of education as were afforded by the rude log school-house of pioneer life. Thi^ 
part of his life experience found expression afterwards in tw^o of his ballads, Clumsy Joe, 
and The Double Conquest. At the age of thirteen, even these advantages were brought ab 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 349 

ruptly to an end. Thrown at that earlyage upon his own exertions, he was employed in va- 
rious ways until the Black Hawk War of 1831, when he joined the army and was sent into 
Illinois to fight the Indians. Wliile thus employed, the desires for a higher life awoke 
within him. The time there given by his companions to idleness and dissipation was spent 
by him in the reading and study of such works as the post afforded. lie w:is aided in his 
efforts at improvement by the advice and good offices of the captain's wife. This period of his 
life is embodied in his ballad of The Drummer Boy. He remained in the army about ten 
years, and rose to a position both pleasant and lucrative. But the desire to preach the gospel 
became so strong and earnest that he no longer dared resist, and he entered at the age of 
twentj'-two upon a course of preparation for the ministry. Not able to take a college course, 
he studied what Greek and Latin he could, and made good proficiency in the natural 
sciences and in general literature, under the direction of Rev. Charles G. Sommers, D. D., 
pastor of the South Baptist Church in New York. Mr. Dyer was ordained in 1842, and 
preached first in a church near his former residence in Brownsville, and afterwards as a mis- 
sionary among the Choctaws. After that he was for some years Secretary of the Indian 
Mission Board at Louisville, Ky. In 1852 he became pastor of the Baptist church in Indian- 
apolis, and in 1859 he came to Philadelphia as District Secretary of the American Baptist 
Publication Society, which position he still holds. Mr. Dyer's contributions to letters have 
been the fruits, not of learned leisure, but of self-denying love to literature for its own sake. 
His first efforts were a few rhymes published in a village newspaper, of whose imijerfec- 
tions he afterwards became so fully aware that he forbore to write any more verses until 
fifteen years' hard study had matured his powers. He then began to contribute to Sartain's 
Magazine, the Southern Literary Magazine, and the Louisville Journal. ^These pieces were 
afterwards published in a volume, Voices of Nature. Besides this, and occasional Sermons, 
etc., he has published Dyer's Psalmist ; Songs and Ballads; The Drunkard's Child ; Ruth, a 
Sacred Cantata; Winter's Evening Entertainment; and Great Wonders in Little Things, a 
charming book for boys and girls. He has also issued more than two hundred Songs in 
sheet music, and some of his songs have been set to as many as eight different tunes. 
Among the songs thus honored may be mentioned: Ah! yes, I Remember; Spare the Old 
Homestead; The Songs My Mother Sung; and the Grave of Ben Bolt. 

Richard H. Stoddard, 1825 , a poet of considerable celebrity, was bom at Hingham, 

Mass. He became a resident of New York city at the age of ten, and has remained there 
ever since. He has written largely for the periodicals, and has published a considerable 
number of volumes. The following are the chief : Footprints, a. Collection of Poems; Poems 
(The Castle by the Sea, etc.) ; Adventures in Fairy Land, a Book of Views for Young People ; 
Town and Country, and the Voices in the Shell ; Songs of Summer ; The Loves and Heroines 
of the Poets ; The King's Bell ; The Story of Little Red Riding Hood, told in verse ; The Chil- 
dren in the Wood, told in verse, etc. " Mr. Stoddard is one of the poets of whom America 

may well be proud." — Miss Mitford. — Mrs. Elizabeth D. Stoddard, 1823 , originally 

Miss Barstow, was born at Mattapoissett, Mass., and was married to Mr. R. H. Stoddard in 
1852. She is a lady of literary tastes, and has published three novels. The Morgesons, Two 
Men, and Temple House, besides numerous contributions to the New York magazines. 

Stlvantjs Drtden Phelps, D. D., 1816 , is a native of Suffield, Conn., and a graduate 

of Brown University, of the class of 1844. Dr. Phelps is a clergyman of the Bai)ti8t Church, 
and was settled for a long time in New Haven, Conn. He has published Eloquence of Na* 
ture and Other Poems ; Sunlight and Heartlight, or Fidelity and Other Poems; The Holy 
Land, with Glimpses of Europe and Egypt; The Poet's Song for the Heart and the Home, 
etc 

Rev. Samuel W. Duffiki.d, 1843 , grandson of Rev. George Duffleld, D. D., was born 

in Brooklyn, and was graduated at Yale, fie has been in the ministry since 1866, and re- 

30 



350 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

sides at Bergen, N. J. He is a gentleman of fine culture and has already given some first 
fruits of literary labor. His publications are Warp and Woof, a Book of Verse ; and Heav- 
enly Land, a Metrical Translation of Bernard of Cluny's Hora Novissima. 

E. Spencer Miller, 1817 , son of Samuel Miller, D. D., was born and educated at 

Princeton, graduating in the class of 1836. Mr. Miller is a lawyer and lives in Philadelphia. 
Besides sundry law books, which come not within the scope of the present work, Mr. Miller 
has published a volume of poems, under the title of Caprices. 

Rev. Samuel Miller Hagem-vn, 1848 , grandson of Samuel Miller, D.D., was born and 

educated at Princeton, graduating in the class of 1868. He is settled in a Presbyterian 
church at New BrunsAvick. Mr. Hageman has given decided evidences of poetic talent. He 
published in 1S68, the year of his graduation, a volume of poems, called Vesper Voices. 

The two stanzas quoted below are from an unpublished poem on Silence: 

SILENCE. 

God shall keep the spaceless secret 

Of the Silence in his heart. 
Through the crescent years of knowledge, 

Through the golden days of art; 
Silent heart, whose birthless beatings 

Throb so softly in their place. 
That God cannot hear himself 

In all the continent of space. 

Greatness lies insphered in silence, 

Littleness to sound is stirred; 
All the grandest things of nature 

Have been seen, but never heard, 
Proving well by printless logic 

All the science of the school : 
Silence is the law of being, 

Sound the breaking of the rule. 

Rat Palmer, D.D., 1808 , is a native of Rhode Island, and a graduate of Tale, of the 

class of 1830. He was settled over the Congregational church in Bath, Me., from 1835 to 
1850, and pastor of the First Church in Albany, from 1S50 to 1865. Since 1865 he has been 
Secretary of the Congregational Union, and has lived in New York. Dr. Palmer holds a 
high rank as a hymn writer, and many of his pieces have found their way into nearly all 
recent collections. Among his publications, the following are the chief: Remember Me, or 
The Holy Communion ; Hymns and Sacred Pieces ; Hints on the Formation of Religious 
Opinions; Closet Hours; Memoirs of Charles Pond, also of Mrs. C. L.Watson; Doctrinal 
Text-Book; The Spirit's Life, a Poem ; Spiritual Improvement; Reminiscences for Fifteen 
Years. 

Rev. Frederick W. Shelton, LL. D., ISU , is a native of Jamaica, Long Island, and a 

graduate of Princeton, in the class of 1834. He is a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, 
and is the author of several humorous and satirical poems and of other works : The Trol- 
lopiad, or The Travelling Gentleman in America, by Nil Admirari ; Salander and the Dragon, 
a Romance; The Rector of St. Bardolph's, or Superannuated; Up the River; Chrystalline, 
or the Heiress of Fall-Down Castle ; Peeps from the Belfry, or The Parish Sketch-Book ; The 
Gold Mania; The Use and Abuse of Reason. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRP]SENT TIME. 351 

Mark F. Biqnet, , is a native of Nova Scotia, but for many years a resident of 

New Orleans. Besides much editorial labor, particularly in the New Orleans Times, he lias 
published, 1867, a volume of excellent poetry, The Forest Pilgrims and Other Poems. 

Henry M. Clarksox, M. D., , a native and resident of South Carolina, and a 

graduate of the Medical College of Charleston, ha.s published a volume, Evelyn and Other 
Poems, which is well spoken of. 

Maj. Lamar Fontaine, , of Texas, is the author of several war lyrics, and among 

others claims to have written the piece generally known as The Picket Guard, or All Quiet 
Along the Potomac On the other hand, this piece first appeared in Harper's Weekly, No- 
vember, 1861, to which periodical it was contributed by Mrs. Ethel Beers. Those interested 
in the question of the authorship of this piece are referred to Davidson's Living Writers of 
the South, p. 194. The piece itself is one of the most remarkable lyrics produced by the 
war. 

THE PICKET GUARD. 
All quiet along the Potomac, they say, 
Except here and there a stray picket 
Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro, 

By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 
'T is nothing, a private or two now and then 

Will not count in the news of the battle. 
Not an ofHcer lost, only one of the men 
Moaning out all alone the death-rattle. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night. 

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; 
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, 

Or in the light of their camp-fires gleaming; 
A tremulous sigh, as a gentle night wind, 

Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping. 
While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes, 

Keep guard o'er the army while sleeping. 

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread, 

As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, 
And thinks of the two on the low trundle-bed, 

Far away in the cot on the mountain. 
His musket falls slack, and his face, dark and grim. 

Grows gentle with memories tender. 
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep; 

For their mother, — may Heaven defend her! 

The moon seems to shine as brightly as then, — 

That night when the love yet unspoken 
Leaped up *o his lips, and when low-murmured vowa 

Were pledged to be ever unbroken. 
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes. 

He dfishes off tears that are welling. 
And gathers his gun close up to its pkvce. 

As if to keep down the heart-swelling. 

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree; 
The footsteps are lagging and weary; 



352 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Yet onward they go, through the broad belt of light, 

Toward the shade of the forest so dreary. 
Hark ! was it the night wind rustling the leaves? 

Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? 
It looked like a rifle ! " Ha ! Mary, good-by." 

And the life-blood is ebbing and splashing. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

No sound save the rush of the river ; 
Whilst soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,— 

The picket's off duty, forever ! 

Henry Lynden Flash. 

Henry Lynden Flash, 1837 , of Alabama, published, in 1860, a 

volume of Poems of uncommon power and beauty. During and since the 
war, he has made various contributions to periodical literature, but has 
published no additional volumes. 

Mr. Flash is a native of the West Indies, of English descent, connected with the Wilber- 
force family. He studied for a while at Georgetown College, D. C, and afterwards in Ken- 
tucky. The following poem needs no eulogy. It cannot fail to make the reader wish to 
hear again from the same author. 

WHAT SHE BROUGHT ME. 

This faded flower that you see 

Was given me, a year ago, 
By one whose little dainty hand 

Is whiter than the snow. 

Her eyes are blue as violets. 

And she's a blonde, and very fair, 
And sunset-tints are not as bright 

As is her golden hair. 

And there are roses on her cheeks 

That come and go like living things; 
Her voice is softer than the brook's 

That flows from hidden springs. 

She gave it me with downcast eyes, 

And rosy flushes of the cheek, 
That told of tender thoughts her tongue 

Had never learned to speak. 

The fitting words had just been said, 

That she was mine as long aa life; 
I gently laid the flower aside. 

And kissed my blushing wife. 

She took it up with earnest look, 

And said, "Oh, prize the flower," — 
And tender t«ars were in her eyes,— 

"It is my only dower." 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 353 

She brought me Faith, and Hope, and Troth, 
She brought me gentle thoughts and lore, 

A soul as pure as those that float 
Around the throne above. 

But earthly things she nothing had, 

Except this fiwied flower you see; 
And though 'tis worthless in your eyes, 

'Tis very dear to me. 

Mrs. Mart E. Tucker, 1838 , is a native of Alabama. Her maiden name was Ferine. 

She was married to Mr. Tucker, of Milledgeville, Qa. After the war, she went to New York, 
where she has since lived, engaged in writing for the journals and magazines. Iler first 
volume, a collection of Poems, appeared in 1867. Another brief poem was published sepa- 
rately, called Loew's Bridge, a Broadway Idyl. It is a description of the moving throng of 
Broadway as seen from the bridge at the intersection of Broadway and Fulton Street. Her 
latest and largest book was A Life of Mark M. Pomeroy, Editor of the La Crosse Democrat. 

Mrs. Mart S. Homes, , is a native of Frederick City, Md. She is the daughter of 

Thomas Shaw, long the Cashier of the Frederick County Bank. After her father's deaths 
she removed with the rest of the family to New Orleans, where she has since resided. She 
was first married to Mr. Norman Rogers and afterwards, in 1864, to Mr. Luther Homes. 
Mrs. Homes has written for the most part under the name of "Millie Mayfield." Her first 
volume was in prose, Carrie Harrington, or Scenes in New Orleans, 1857. Her next vol- 
ume was in verse, Progression, or The South Defended, 1860. Besides these two volumes, she 
has contributed numerous poetical articles to current literature. 

Mrs. Julia P. Creswell, , is a native of Huntsville, Ala. Her father was Colonel 

James J. Pleasants, of Virginia, and her mother was Miss Bibb, daughter of Governor Bibb 
of Alabama. Miss Pleasants was married, in 1854, to Mr. Creswell, a lawyer of distinction, 
who before the war was one of the Judges of the State of Alabama. Judge Creswell became 
a planter at Shreeveport, La., but having lost his fortune by the war, resumed the practice 
of the law, while Mrs. Creswell teaches a village school. Mrs. Creswell hiis published the 
following works: Apheila and Other Poems (the joint production of herself and her cousin 
Thomas Bibb M. Bradley), 1854 ; Poems by herself only ; Callamum, a novel, 1868. 



Mrs. Margaret J. Preston. 

Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston, , of Lexington, Va., is 

at this time the sweetest singer of the Old Dominion. She has never made 
literature a profession, yet she has been for twenty-five years a frequent 
contributor to the magazines, and she has published three vohiraes of poems 
which have been received with marked favor. The most considerable of 
these was Beechenbrook, a Khyme of tlie War. 

Mrs. Preston's maiden name was Junkin. She is a daughter of the late Dr. George Junkin, 
who at the outbreak of the war was Prosidont of Wa.shiugton College, at Lexington. The 
father sympathized with the North, and left the College. The daughter 8ymi>athize<i with 
her huslKind, Col. Preston, of the Military Institute at Lexington, and with her sister's hus- 
band, Stonewall Jackson, and her other Southern friends. The poetry of Beechenbrook is 

30* X 



354 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tinctured accordingly with warm Sonthem feeling. The book has been very popular in ths 
South, and has had many admiring readers in more northemly latitudes. No fair-minded 
reader can well help admiring such passages as the lines on Stonewall Jackson's Grave, 
or the pathetic lyric. Slain in Battle, 

Another volume, Silverwood, a book of Memories, was published in 1856. Her latest vol- 
ume, published in 1870, and called Old Song and New, is almost entirely religious, and con- 
tains little or no allusion to the war. It is made up, as its name indicates, of short lyrics 
which had appeared through various channels and at different dates. The Proem to this 
volume is itself a poem of rare beauty, and is quoted as a favorable specimen of Mrs. Pres- 
ton's fine literary taste. 

Mrs. Preston has been of late years a fi^nent contributor to Gen. Hill's magazine, The 
Land We Love. She was, as Margaret Junkin, a favorite contributor to Sartain's Magazine, 
in 1849 and '50- 

DEDICATION- 

Day-duty done, I've idled forth to get 

An hour's light pastime in the shady lanes, 

And here and there have pluckt with careless pains 

These wayside waifs, — sweetbrier and violet, 
And such-like simple things that seemed indeed 

Flowers, — though, perhaps, I knew not flower from weed. 

What shall I do with them? They find no place 

In stately vases where magnolias give 

Out sweets in which their faintness could not live: 
Yet tied with grasses, posy-wise, for grace, 

I have no heart to cast them quite away. 

Though their brief bloom should not outlive the day. 

Upon the open pages of your boot 

I lay them down; — And if within your ey© 

A little tender mist I may descry. 
Or a sweet sunshine flicker in your look, — 

Right happy will I be, though all declare 

No eye but Love's could find a violet there. 

SLAIN IN BATTLE. 
Break, my heart, and ease this pain; 
Cease to throb, thou tortured brain; 
Let me die, since he is slain — 

Slain in battle i 

Blessed brow, that loved to rest 
Its dear whiteness on my breast; 
Gory was the grave it prest — 
Slain in battle! 

Oh! that still and stately form! 
Nevermore shall it be warm. 
Chilled beneath thiit iron storm — 
Slain in battle ! 

Not a pQlow for his head; 
Not a hand to smooth his bed; 
•Not one tender parting said — 
Slain in battle! 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 355 

Straightway from that bloody sod. 
Where the trampled horsemen trod, 
Lifted to the arms of God — 
Slain in battle! 

Not my love to come between. 
With its interposing screen; 
Naught of earth to intervene — 
Slain in battle! 

Snatched the purple billows o'er, 
Through the fiendish rage and roar, 
To the Car and peaceful shore — 
Slain in battle! 

JVunc demitte, thus I pray; 
What else left for me to say. 
Since my life is reft away? — 
Slain in battle! 

Let me die, God! the dart 
Drinks the life-blood of my heart; 
Hope, and joy, and peace depart ! — 
Slain in battle! 

KEEPING HIS WORD. 
L 
"Only a penny a box," he said: 
But the gentleman turned away his head. 
As if he shrank from the squalid sight 
Of the boy who stood in the failing light. 

•Oh, sir," he stammered, "you cannot know — 
(And he brushed from his matches the flakes of snow, 
That the sudden tear might have chanced to fall,) 

" Or, I think — I think you will take them all. 

"Hungry and cold, at our garret pane. 
Ruby will watch till I come again. 
Bringing the loaf. The sun has set. 
And he has n't a crumb of breakfast yet 

"One penny, and then I can buy the bread." 

The gentleman stopped. "And you?" he said. 
"I? — I can put up with them, hunger and cold. 

But Ruby is only five years old. 

"I promised our mother before she went — 
She knew I would do it, and died content — 
I promised her, sir, through best, through worst, 
I always would think of Ruby first." 

The gentleman paused at the open door; 
Such tales he had often heard before; 



356 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

But he fumbled his purse in the twilight drear — 
"I have nothing less than a shilling here." 

" Oh, sir, if you will only take the pack, 
I'll bring you the change in a moment back; 
Indeed you may trust me!" "Trust you? — no; 
But there is the shilling ; take it and go." 



' The gentleman lolled in his easy-chair, 

And watched his cigar-wreath melt in the air, 
And smiled on his children, and rose to see 
The baby asleep on its mother's knee. 

"And now it is nine by the clock," he said, 

"Time that my darlings were all abed; 
Kiss me 'good-night,' and each be sure. 
When you 're saying your prayers, remember the poor." 

Just then came a message — "A boy at the door " — 
Before it was uttered he stood on the floor. 
Half breathless, bewildered, and ragged and strange ; 
"I am Ruby — Mike's brother — 1 have brought you the change. 

"Mike's hurt, sir. 'Twas dark; the snow made him blind, 
And he didn't take notice the train was behind, 
Till he slipped on the track — and then it whizzed by, 
And he's home in the garret. I think he will die. 

"Yet nothing would do him, sir — nothing would do, 
But out through the snow I must hurry to you. 
Of his hurt he was certain you would n't have heard, 
And so you might think he had broken his word." 

When the garret they hastily entered, they saw 
Two arms, mangled, shapeless, outstretched from the straw. 
"You did it — dear Ruby — God bless you!'" he said, 
And the boy, gladly smiling, sank back — and was dead. 

Mrs. Anna Petbe Dinnies, , of New Orleans, is favorably known as a writer of 

sweet and effective poetry. She was bom in South Carolina, being a daughter of Judge 
Shackelford of that State, and was educated by the Misses Ramsay of Charleston. She was 
married, in 1830, to Johli C. Dinnies, Esq., of St. Louis, Mo., in which place she lived until 
a few years before the war, when the family removed to New Orleans. As a writer she has 
appeared generally under the name of Moina. She has contributed to most of the literary 
periodicals of the South. In the Catholic Standard of New Orleans, a weekly edited by her 
husband, she published a series of papers called Rachel's What-Not, which attained consider- 
able popularity; also another series called Random Readings. Her chief publication, how- 
ever, was a volume called The Floral Year, being a collection of one hundred poems, arranged 
into twelve different bouquets suited to the different months. 

Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, is the author of the following works : Woodbum, a novel ; 
Normandale, a novel ; Waif, or The Monktons, a novelette ; Florence Vale, a Tale of Tuscany, 
a lay narrative poem ; and a volume of Poems. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 357 

Mrs. Jeffrey was born in Natchez; her maiden name was Griifith. She was adopted 
by her maternal aunt, Mrs. Vertner, and took her aunt's name. Her early childhood was 
passed near Port Gibson, Miss. At the age of ten she was taken to Lexington, Ky., to be 
educated at the seminary in that place, conducted by Bishop Smith, of the Episcopal Church. 
At the age of seventeen she was married to Mr. Claude M. Johnson, a gentleman of fortune. 
After the death of Mr. Johnson, by whom she had si.x children, she Wiis married to Mr. 
Alexander Jeffrey, a native of Edinburgh, living in Kentucky. The family are now living 
in Lexington. Mrs. Jeffrey wrote much for the Louisville Journal under the signature of 
" Rosa." 

Miss Agnes Leonard, , was born in Louisville. Ky., and was educated by her 

fattier, Dr. 0. L. Leonard, President of the llenry Female College, Newcastle, Ky. On the 
breaking out of the war, the family removed to Chicago, the father favoring the cause of the 
North, but the daughter remaining a warm friend of the South. She was married, in 1868, 
to Dr. S. E. Scanland. Her first publications appeared in the Louisville Courier, under the 
name of Mollie Myrtle. A volume of these earlier effusions was published under the title 
of Myrtle Blossoms. She has since published a novel, The Vanquished. She has writtea 
much for the Chicago papers. Among these contributions is a series of papers called Meu, 
Women, and Beasts. 

Mrs. Fanny Murdaugh Downing. 

^Iks. Fanny Murdaugh Downing, , of North Carolina, has 

published several works, both in prose and verse, which have been well 
received, and which show fine scholarship as well as power. 

Mrs. Downing was born in Portsmouth, Va. Her maiden name was Murdaugh. She is 
daughter of the late Hon. John W. Murdaugh. She was married in 1851 to Charles W. 
Downing, Esq., then Secretary of State of Florida. She has lived for many years past at 
Charlotteville, N. C. 

The following is a list of her principal publications: Nameless, a novel, 1865; Perfect 
though Suffering, a Tale, 1867 ; Florida, a Tale of the Laud of Flowers ; IMuto, or The Origin 
of Mint Julep, a story in verse. The work last named " is a playful effusion, marked by un- 
mistakable ability, and full of fine hits, sly humor, and playful fancy, with no want of genu- 
ine fire. It is a species of melange humor, in which the burlesque and mock-heroic prevail, 
which has been compared to the Rev. Mr. Barham's celebrated Ingoldsby Legends." — J. 
Wood Davidson. 

ORIGIN OF "MINTHE."— Pram "Piuto." 

It chanced, as his majesty wandered, one day, 
Through his realm, in a listlessly loitering way, 

That he came to a ferry. 

From which a grim wherry 
Crossed over Cocytus, a river so very 
Peculiar, that really, believe it who can, 
It was wholly a river and partly a man I 

It was certainly water. 

And yet had a daughter. 
So fair and so lovely, that every one thought her 
A goddess, and numberless suitors had sought her 
With patient persistence, which certainly ought to 
Have melted her heart, and enduced her to leave 
Uer watery old father, whose uanie meauB " to grieve.** 



358 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

King Pluto had heard of the fame of this maid. 
And though an old gentleman, sober and staid, 
" Very married," besides, had no business to know 
Any charms in black eyes, or in shoulders of snow. 

Mes. L. Tirginia French, , whose maiden name was Smith, was bom in Virginia, 

but educated in Pennsylvania. On returning home from school, Miss Smith and her sister, 
finding a new and uncongenial spirit in their father's house, went to Memphis, Tenn., and 
established themselves as teachers. There Virginia became an occasional contributor to the 
periodicals, under the name of L'Inconnue. In 1852, she became associated with some gen- 
tlemen of New Orleans in the publication of the Southern Ladies' Book. In 1856, she pub- 
lished a volume of Poems, called Wind Whispers, and a Tragedy, called Iztalixo, the Lady 
of Tala. She was married, in 1853, to Mr. John H. French, of McMinnville, Tenn. 

Mrs. Cornelia J. M. Jordan, 1830 , of Lynchburg, Va., is the author of several vol- 
umes of poetry. Her maiden name was Matthews. She was born in Lynchburg, and edu- 
cated at the Catholic Academy of the Visitation, at Georgetown. She was married in 1851 to 
Mr. F. H. Jordan, a lawyer of Luray, Page County. The following is a list of her publica- 
tions : Flowers of Hope and Memory, 1861 ; Corinth and other Poems of the War, 1865 ; A 
Christmas Poem for the Children, 1865; Richmond, her Glory and her Graves, 1867. 

Mrs. Mart Bayard Clarke, , a native and resident of Raleigh, N. C, besides nu- 
merous occasional pieces in prose and verse, has published three volumes, which have been 
well received. These are Reminiscences of Cuba; Wood Notes ; and Mosses from a Rolling 
Stone, or Idle Moments of a Busy Woman. This last title has reference to a book by Mrs. 
King of South Carolina, Busy Moments of an Idle Woman. Mrs. Clarke is a daughter of 
Thomas P. Devereux, a large Roanoke planter, and is descended on the mother's side from 
the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. 

Mrs. C. 0. Donnelly, , of Georgia, has published several satirical poems, showing 

power and skill. The following are the chief-. Destruction of the City of Columbia, S. C. ; 
Has She any Tin ? 

Mrs. Claea Cole, , of Nashville, Tenn., published in 1861 a volume, called Clara's 

Poems, with an introduction by Dr. Edgar. 

Miss Mollie E. Moore, , a native of Alabama, but a resident of Texas, published 

in 1867 a dainty volume. Minding the Gap and Other Poems, which shows fine poetic abilities. 
From the variety as well as the sweet music of her verse, she is called, not inappropriately, 
The Texas Mocking-Bird. 

GOING OUT AND COMING IN. 

Going out to fame and triumph, 

Going out to love and light; 
Coming in to pain and sorrow, 

Coming in to gloom and night: 
Going out with joy and gladness, 

Coming in with woe and sin; 
Ceaseless stream of restless pilgrims 

Going out and coming in! 

Through the portals of the homestead, 
From beneath the blooming vine; 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 359 

To the trumpet-tones of glory, 

Where the bays and laurels twine; 
From the loving home-caresses, 

To the chill voice of the world — 
Gtoing out with gallant canvas 

To the summer breeze unfurled. 

Through the gateway, down the footpath. 

Through the lilacs by the way ; 
Through the clover by the meadow. 

Where the gentle home-lights stray; 
To the wide world of ambition. 

Up the toilsome hill of fame, 
Winning oft a mighty triumph. 

Winning oft a nobler name. 

Coming back all worn and weary — 

Weary with the world's cold breath; 
Coming to the dear old homestead, 

Coming in to age and death : 
Weary of its empty flattery. 

Weary of its ceaseless din. 
Weary of its heartless sneering. 

Coming from the bleak world In. 

Going out with hopes of glory, 

Coming in with sorrows dark; 
Going out with sails all flying. 

Coming in with mastless bark ; 
Restless streams of pilgrims, striving 

Wreaths of fame and love to wiu. 
From the doorways of the homestead 

Going out and coming in. 

Miss Annie R. Blount, 1839 , is a native of Richmond County, Ga., and resides at 

Augusta, in that State, She published, in 1860, a volume of poems. 

Miss Sallib A. Brock, , a native of Madison Court-House, Va., has published 

three volumes, besides numerous occasional pieces, nearly all growing out of the war : Rich- 
mond During the War ; Four Years of Personal Observations, by a Richmond Lady, 1867 ; The 
Southern Amaranth, 1868 ; Myra, or the Foreshudowings, a novel. 

Mes. Makt E. Bryan, is a native of Florida, daughter of Maj. J. D. Edwards, an influential 
planter. She was married at the age of sixteen to Mr. Bryan, a wealthy planter of Louis- 
iana. She began to write for publication in 1859. Early in the war she escaped from Louis- 
iana, and made her home in Georgia. She has written much, both in prose and verse, chiefly 
the latter, and her poetry is of the impivssioned kind, that reminds one of Mrs. Norton. 
"If I were called upon to indicate the poetess of the South who sUiiids first in vigor, pna- 
Bion, and imagination, as distinguished from fancy, I should name Mrs. Bryun.'' — J". Wood 
Davidson. 

Mrs. C vroune A. Ball, , published, in 1866, a small volume, The Jacket of Gray, 

and Othsr Fugitive Poems. The poem first named is full of touderness and natural pathos. 



360 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

Miss Susan Archer Tallet, , of Virginia, published in 1869 a volume of poems, 

which were well received. 

Miss Carrie Bell Sinclair, 1839 , published a volume of poems in 1861. Miss Sinclair 

is a native and resident of Georgia, daughter of a Methodist minister. 

Mrs. Anna Chambers Ketchum, , editress of The Lotus, Memphis, besides her 

editorial labors, has written three volumes : Nelly Bracken, a novel ; Rilla Motto, a ro- 
mance ; Lotus-Flowers, a volume of miscellaneous poems. 

The Gary Sisters. 

Alice and Phoebe Gary were so connected in their lives, and are so 
linked together in the recollections of the public, that no record of either 
can be truthful or complete without containing at the same time a record 
of the other. They will be noticed therefore together. 

Ahce£ary, 1820-1871, and Phoebe Cary, 1824-1871, were born on a farm, eight miles north 
of Cincinnati. They had no advantages of early education, except the usual attendance 
upon the district school. 

The sisters were unlike in mind and body. Alice was possessed of extreme delicacy, was 
timid in disposition and feeble in health. Phoebe was possessed of robust health, was self- 
reliant, and had no small share of humor and wit. 

Alice began writing about 1838. Her first publications appeared in the Cincinnati papers. 
She next wrote for the Ladies' Repository, Cincinnati, and for Graham's Magazine. In 1847 
she began writing, both prose and verse, for the National Era, at Washington. 

In 1850 a volume of poems by Alice and Phcebe Cary appeared, edited by Griawold. Of 
this volume about one third was by Phoebe, the rest by Alice. 

In 1851, their mother being dead, and the family considerably broken up, the sisters, aged 
respectively thirty-one and twenty-seven, with no means of support but their brains and 
their fingers, went to New York to make a living by literature. Instead of boarding, they 
rented a small, cheap house, and set up house-keeping, and there, by economy, and by dint 
of hard work, they managed to keep the wolf at bay. Gradually signs of thrift appeared; 
and eventually they lived in a house of their own, not large or showy, but comfortable, and 
paid for by the labor of their hands. Here they received weekly, without ostentation, literary 
and artistic guests, and dispensed for many years a quiet, inexpensive hospitality. " Their 
parlor was not.so large as some others, but quite as neat and cheerful; and the few literary 
persons or artists who occasionally met at their informal invitation, to discuss with them a 
cup of tea and the newest books, poems, and events, might have found many more preten- 
tious, but few more enjoyable, gatherings. I have a dim recollection that the first of these 
little tea-parties was held up two flights of stairs, in one of the less fashionable sections of 
the city ; but good things were said tliere, that I recall with pleasure even yet ; while of 
some of the company, on wliom I have not since set eyes, I cherish a pleasant and grateful 
remembrance. As their circumstances gradually though slowly improved, by dint of dili- 
gent industry and judicious economy, they occupied more eligible quarters ; and the modest 
dwelling they have for some years owned and improved, in the very heart of this emporium, 
has long been known to the literary guild as combining one of the best private libraries, 
with the sunniest drawing-room (even by gas-light) to.be found between King's Bridge and 
the Battery." — Horace Greeley. 

To the evening gatherings here alluded to, Phoebe contributed many attractions of mind, 
person, and accomplishment. In her presence, every guest, however obscure or humble, 
was made to feel perfectly at home, and her genial wit sparkled and corrusciited to the de- 
light of all around her. Her repartee often cut like a Damascus blade. On one occasion, a 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 361 

certain well-known actor, then recently deceased, and more conspicuous for his professional 
skill than for his private virtues, was discussed. "We shall never," remarked some one, 
«' Bee again." " No," quickly responded Phoebe, " not until we go to the pit." Ilor con- 
versation abounded in turns as quick and sharp as this ; but her wit was never used to 
wound any one. 

Alice died in February, and Phoebe in July, 1871. 

They wrote chiefly for the New York Tribune, and Independent, though not confining 
themselves to these periodicals, and appearing in frequent volumes, both prose and verse. 

Of the separate publications, those of Alice are: Ilagar, a novel ; Lyra and Other Poems ; 
Clovernook ; Married, not Mated, a novel ; Poems ; Pictures of Country Life, prose; A Lover's 
Diary. The separate volumes by Phoebe are : Poems and Parodies ; Poems of Faith, Uope, 
and Resignation. 

The parents of the Cary sisters were among the early converts to Universalism, and the 
daughters were earnest believers and advocates of the same faith. A religious spirit pervades 
the writings of both, and some of their hymns have been favorites with people of all 
creeds. 

A curious and beautiful incident is told in regard to one of these hymns, called " Nearer 
Home," and written by Phoebe Gary. A gentleman in China, intrusted with packages for a 
young man from his friends in the United States, learned that he would probably be found 
in a certain gambling-house. He went thither, but not seeing the young man, sat dowa 
and waited in the hope that he might come in. The place was a bedlam of noises, men get- 
ting angry over their cards, and frequently coming to blows. Near him sat two men — one 
young, the other forty years of age. They were betting and drinking in a terrible way, the 
older one giving utterance continually to the foulest profiinity. Two games had been fin- 
ished, the young man losing each time. The third game, with fresh bottles of brandy, had 
just begun, and the young man sat lazily back in his chair, while the oldest shuffled hia 
cards. The man was a long time dealing the cards ; and the young man, looking carelessly 
about the room, began to hum a tune. He went on, till at length he began to sing the hymu 
of Phoebe Cary above quoted. The words, says the writer of the story, repeated in such a 
Yile place, at first made me shudder. A Sabbath-School hymn in a gambling don ! But 
while the young man sang, the elder stopped dealing the cards, stared at the singer a mo- 
ment, and, throwing the cards on the floor, exclaimed : " Harry, where did you learn that 
tune ? " " What tune ? " " Why, that one you 've been singing." The young man said he 
did not know what he had been singing, when the elder repeated the words, with tears in 
his eyes, and the young man said he had learned them in a Sunday-School in America. 
"Come," said the elder, getting up ; "come, Harry. Here 's what I won from you. Go and 
use it for some good purpose. As for mo, as God sees me, I have played my last game, and 
drank my last bottle. I have misled you, Harry, and I am sorry. Give me your hand, my 
boy, and say that, for old America's sake, if for no other, you will quit thia infernal 
biuiuess." 

NEARER HOME. 

One sweetly solemn thought 

Comes to mo o'er and o'er; 
I'm nearer my home to-day 

Than I ever have been before; 

Nearer my Father's house, 

Where the many mansions bo; 
Nearer the great white throne, 

Nearer the crystal sea; 



Nearer the bound of life, 
Where wo lay our burdens down; 



81 



362 AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



Nearer leaving^ the cross. 
Nearer gaining the crown. 

But the waves of that silent sea 

Roll dark before my sight, . 
That brightly the other side 

Break on a shore of light. 

Oh, if my mortal feet 

Have almost gained the brink, 
If it be I am nearer home 

Even to-day than I think, 

Father, perfect my trust, 

Let my spirit feel in death 
That her feet are firmly set 

On the Rock of a living faith. — Phoebe Ccary, 

A PSALM OF LIFE. 

Tell me not in idle jingle. 

Marriage is an empty dream. 
For the girl is dead that's single. 

And things are not what they seem. 

Married life is real, earnest; 

Single blessedness a fib; 
Ta'en from man, to man returnest, 

Has been spoken of the rib. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow. 

Is our destined end or way; 
But to act, that each to-morrow 

Nearer brings the wedding-day. 

lafe is long, and youth is fleeting. 
And our hearts, if there we search. 

Still like steady drums are beating 
Anxious marches to the church. 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life, 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 

Be a woman, be a wife! 

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant I 

Let the dead Past bury its deadl 
Act — act in the living Present: 

Heart within, and Man ahead I 

laves of married folks remind us 

We can live our lives as well, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Such examples as will tell ; — 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 363 

Such examples, that another, 

Sailing far from Hymen's port, 
A forlorn unmarried brother. 

Seeing, shall take heart and court. 

Let us then be up and doing, 

With the heart and head begin ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 

Learn to labor, and to win. — Phoebe Gary. 

TO AN EVENING ROSE. 

Your tears, my evening rose. 

Speak for you. I can almost hear them say: 
Day Cometh all too soon unto the close — 

My sweetheart maketh haste to be away ; 

Ah! not for all my weeping will he stay. 

This blessed mom of grace — 

The memory still my pain almost deceiyes — 
He lapped his yellow locks about my face. 

And kissed and kissed me deep among my leaves. 

Is it a wonder such forsaking grievee? 

Nay, my lamenting flower, 

But for sad solace, hear me tell you this : 
After the lapse of just a little hour, 

There cometh ending of all earthly bliss, 

No matter howsoever dear it is. 

I had a sweetheart too, 
And loved him with a love surpassing thine; 

But when my life was gone out of the dew. 
And lost the blushes that did make me fine, 
His mouth with smiles for me did cease to shine. 

And when my poor, sick heart 

Had burned itself to ashes, and was dead, 
So that no ruddy drop might ever start 

And run into my cheeks and make them red, 

My soul and I took counsel, and we said: 

If not on this low earth, 
Then somewhere— in the heavens and in the sky — 

This life-long travail surely must give birth 
To love too vital with God's grace, to die: 
And we got comfort so, my soul and I. — Alice Cory. 

ORDER FOR A PICTURE. 

"Woods and cornfields a little brown, — 
The picture must not be over-bright, — 
Yet all in the golden, gracious light 
Of a cloud when the summer suu Ij down. 



' 364 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

And always and alwaj's, night and mom, 
Woods upon woods, and fields of corn 
Lying between them, not quite sere, 

And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, 

When the wind can hardly find breathing-room 
Under their tassels ; — cattle near, 

Biting shorter the short green grass; 

And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, 

With bluebirds twittering all around, — 
^ (Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!) 

These, and the house where I was bom, 

Low and little, and black and old, 

With children, many as it can hold, 

All at the windows, open wide, — 

Heads and shoulders clear outside. 

And fair young faces all ablush ; 
Perhaps you may have seen, some day- 
Roses crowding the self-same way. 

Out of a wilding, waj'side bush. 

"Listen closer. When you have done 

With woods, and cornfields, and grazing herds, 

A lady, the loveliest ever the sun 
Looked down upon, you must paint for me ; 
Oh, if I only could make you see 

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, 
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace. 
The woman's soul, and the angel's face 

That are beaming on me all the while! 
I need not speak these foolish words; 

Yet one word tells you all I would say, — 
She is my mother; you will agree 

That all the rest may be thrown away." — Alice Gary. 

Mrs. E. C. Kinney. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Clementine Kinney, , wife of tlie Hon. 

William B. Kinney, long United States Minister to Sardinia, is gifted with 
fine poetic talents, and is the author of numerous lyrics which in 1867 were 
published in a volume. One of these. The Italian Beggar Boy, appeared 
originally in Blackwood, and has been much admired. 

Mrs. Kinney was bom and educated in New York. Her maiden name was Dodge. She 
was the daughter of David L.Dodge. She was first married to Edmund B. Stedman, of Hart- 
ford, by whom she had two sons. One is dead; the other, Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, inherits 
the literary tastes of his mother, and has already acquired an honorable position in letters. 
In 1840, she was married to William B. Kinney, Esq., editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser. 
In 1850, Mr. Kinney having received the appointment of ambassador to the kingdom of 
Sardinia, they removed to Italy, and continued to reside there until 1865. 

While in Italy, Mrs. Kinney published Felicitfi, a romance in verse, three hundred pages. 
After her return, she published two volumes of Poems. She has for the last twenty-five 
years contributed, both in prose aud verse, to the periodicals. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 365 

TO AN ITALIAN BEGGAR-BOY. 
Thou miniature of woe ! 

Thy half-clad meagre form 
Gliding along doth go, 

Starvation's spectre I Storm 
And sun alike 
Unheeded strike 
That head which ne'er did covering know. 

Thy ravenous gray eyes glare 

Like a young wolf's, dread boy ! 
Fearful is childhood's stare, 
Bereft of childhood's joy: 
It makes me wild 
To see a child 
Who never gladdened at a toy. 

Oh, hard must be the lot 

That makes a child a dread ! 
Where children's smiles are not, 
Thorns grow in flowret's stead ; 
A child's glad face 
Is Heaven's own grace 
Round manhood's stern existence shed. 

Turn oflF that hungry eye, 

It gnaws at Pity's heart ! 
Here 's bread ; but come not nigh — 
Thy look makes agues start I 
There, take the whole ; 
To thy starved soul 
No crumb of joy will bread impart. 

Thiue is the famished cry 
Of a young heart unfed, 
The hollow spirit's sigh. 
For something more than bread 
" Give ! give ! " it says : 
• Ah! vain he prays 

To man, who prayer to God ne'er said I 

Wert thou of woman born? 

Did human mother's breast 
Nourish thee, thing forlorn ? 
Hath any love carest 
Thine infant cheek? 
Didst ever speak. 
Or hear, the name of father blest? 

No, no. It cannot be ! 

Thou art the birth of Want ; 
Thy sire was Misery, 

Thy mother Famine gaunt: 

81 • 



36G AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Thou hadst no home, — 
The naked dome 
Was all the covering Earth could grant. 

See! here a happy troup 
Of real children come, 
, Their lips the fond names group 
Of Father, Mother, Home ! 
They go not far — 
^ Love is the star 

That draws them back where'er they roam* 

But -wherefore, with mock grin, 
Dost thou pursue these now ? 
Hath childhood any kin 
Or kith with such as thou? 
One hand did form 
The bird and worm — 
No other kinship these allow. 

Hark! there rings Nature's laugh 

Fresh from those well-fed throats; 
Old age leans on his staff 
To listen to its notes : 
The gush of joy 
Makes him a boy, — 
How glad remembrance o'er it gloats! 

Does that spasmodic scream. 

Jerked from thy shrunken chest, 
A human effort seem 
To laugh among the rest? 
It shocks the ear, 
God! to hear 
Woe, through a child's false laugh, confestl 

And have these children all 

One Father, each who owns ? 
How partial blessings fall 

Upon his little ones! • 

Why, outcast boy. 
Must thou mock joy. 
While these pour out its natural tones? 

Ah ! why indeed ? Be hushed. 
Short-sighted soul, and wait. 
To learn why worms are crushed. 
While birds sing at heaven's gate; 
Why pools infect, 
While lakes reflect 
The pure sky, and bear Fortune's freight. 

Edmund C. Stedman, 1833 , mentioned in the preceding sketch, and son of the poetess, 

Mrs. E. C. Kinney, has won for himself an honored name in the field of letters. He was 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. J3G7 

born in Hartford, Conn^ and graduated at Yale. He went to New York in 1853, and since 
that time has been engaged mostly in literary pursuits. He has contributed at diflFerent 
times to the Tribune, the World, the Atlantic Monthly, Galaxy, Putnam, and the North 
American Review. His separate publications are the following: Poems, Lyric and Idyllic; 
Alice of Monmouth, an Idyl of the Great War, with other Poems ; The Blameless Princ« 
and other Poems; The Battle of Bull Run; Letter of an Army Correspondent. 

Mr. Stedman is a member of the New York Stock Exchange, but gives much of his time 
to the cultivation of letters. 

Mrs. Emeline S. Smith, 1823 , wife of Mr. James M. Smith of the New York bar, and 

a native of New Baltimore, N. Y., has published two volumes of poetry: The Fairy's 
Secret and other Poems ; Poems and Ballads. 

Mrs. Anne C. (Lynch) Botta, , is widely known as a poetess. A collection of her 

Poems, handsomely illustrated, and forming an elegant volume, was published in 1848. A 
prose book. Leaves from the Diary of a Recluse, appeared in 1845. Her latest work is Hand- 
Book of Universal Literature. She was born in Bennington, Vt., and educated in Albany. 
She was for many years the centre of a literary circle in New York, and one of the arbiters 
of taste in literary matters. She was married, in 1855, to Professor Vincenzo Botta, noticed 
elsewhere in this volume. 
• 

Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton. 

Mbs. Sarah T. Bolton, 1820 , is one of the sweet singers of the 

West. Her poems have never been collected in book-form, though emi- 
nently deserving of that honor. 

Mrs. Bolton's maiden name was Barritt. She was bom at Newport, Ky, Her mother was 
one of the Pendletons of Virginia. Mr. Barritt removed to Indiana when Sarah was only 
three years old, and she has resided ever since in that State. She began to write versos 
for the newspapers when only sixteen years old. Writing for the paper led to an acquaint- 
ance with the editor, Mr. Nathaniel Bolton, and ended in her marriage to him. Mr. Bolton 
soon after became involved in his affairs, during the financial crisis of 1837-8. " To extricate 
himself from his difficulties, he opened a tavern on his farm, a short distance west of the 
city of Indianapolis. Mrs. Bolton, then scarcely seventeen years old, found herself encum- 
bered wMth the care of a large dairy and a public house. To aid as much as possible in 
relieving her husband from embarrassment, she dispensed with help, and with her own 
hands, often for weeks and months, performed all the labor of the establishment. Thus, 
for nearly two years, this child of genius, to whom song was as natural as to the bird 
of the greenwood, resigned herself to incessant toil and care, in order that she might aid her 
husband in meeting the pecuniary obligations which honesty or honor might impose. 
During those long and dreary years of toil and self-denial, she wrote little or nothing. At 
last the crisis was reached, the work accomplished, and the bird so long cAgcd and tuneless 
was again free to soar into the region of the sun." — William C. Larrabee, in the Ladies' 
Repository. 

Mr. Bolton, on returning to Indianapolis, was enabled to establish himself in a neat cot- 
tage, which has been the home of the family ever since. In 1855, Mr. Bolton was appointed 
Consul at Geneva, Switzerland, and Mrs. Bolton accompanied him during part of his Euro- 
pean sojourn. He returned in feeble health in 1857, and died in the following year. While 
in Europe, she wrote letters for the Cincinnati Commercial and the New York Homo Jour- 
nal. Some of them, like PaiMle Your Own Canoe, are very familiar to the public ear. The 
impulse which drives her to song is well expressed in the following liuos: 



368 AMERICAN LITERATUBE. 

Breezes from the land of Eden 

Come to fan me with their wing. 
Till my soul is full of music. 

And I cannot choose but sing. 

When a sparkling fount is brimming. 

Let a fairy cloud bestow. 
But another drop of water. 

And a wave will overflow. 

When a thirsty flower has taken 

All the dew its heart can bear. 
It distributes the remainder 

To the sunbeam and the air, 

JosEPHiWE PoLLAKD, , a native and resident of New York, is the author of many 

beautiful lyrics, as well as of numerous short, pithy prose articles in the periodicals. She 
has been for ten years or more a constant contributor to religious periodical literature, and 
has written some hymns and sacred songs of great beauty. She has published two Sunday- 
School books. Miss Pollard was educated by Rev. Gorham D. Abbot. 

OUTSIDE THE GATE. • 

I stood outside the gate, 

A poor, wayfaring child ; 
Within my heart there beat 

A tempest loud and wild. 
A fear oppressed my soul, 

That I might be too late; 
And oh ! I trembled sore, 

And prayed, outside the gate. 

*' Mercy ! " I loudly cried ; 

"Oh! give me rest from sinl" 
"I -will," a voice replied ; 
And Mercy let me in. 
She bound my bleeding wounds; 

She soothed my aching head; 
She eased my burdened soul. 
And bore the load instead. 

In Mercy's guise, I knew 

The Saviour long abused ; 
Who often sought my heart. 

And wept when I refused. 
Oh! what a blest return 

For ignorance and sin! 
I stood outside the gate, 

And Jesus let me in ! 

Mrs. Elizabeth (Akers) Allen, , published, under her former name of Elizabeth 

Akers, many lyrical pieces of high merit. One of these, " Rock me to Sleep, Mother," has 
been very extensively copied. A volume of her Poems was published in 1853, and another 
by Ticknor & Fields, in 1867. Mrs. Allen was born and educated in Maine. She has lived 
for the last seven years in Richmond, Ya. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 369 

Mes. Makoaret E. Sangster, 1838 , -wife of Mr. George Sangster of Williamsbnrgh, 

N. Y., has contributed largely for the last fifteen years to religious periodical literature. 
Mrs. Sangster's maiden name was Munaon. She was born in New Rochelle, N. Y., and edu- 
cated chiefly in Paterson, N. J., and at Williamsburgh. Her only volumes are two Sunday- 
School books — Little Jamie, and Home in Heaven. 

^ Thomas A. MacKkllar, 1812 , is a native of New York city, and a printer by trade. He 

came to Philadelphia in 1833, and entered the famous stereotype foundry of L. Johnson & 
Co. There he rose by degrees to be thechief proof-reader of that extensive concern, afterwards 
a partner in the house, and, on the death of Mr. Johnson, became its head, the title being 
changed to that of MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan. Mr. MacKellar is the author of The Ameri- 
can Printer, a manual of Typography for the instruction of beginners. Besides this, which 
is strictly in the line of his profession, he has, all through his professional career, spared some 
time for literary culture, and has published several volumes of excellent poetry. He first 
came before the public through the columns of Neal's Gazette, under the signature of Tarn 
(the initials of his own name). His volumes are : Tam's Fortnight Ramble and other Poems ; 
Droppings from the Heart ; and Lines for the Gentle and Loving. 

Rev. Williara Baxter. 

Eev. WrLLiAM Baxter, 1820 , of New Lisbon, Ohio, has published 

some poems of great merit. 

Mr, Baxter was bom in Leeds, England, and emigrated with his parents to the United 
States in the year 1828. He received his education at Bethany College, Virginia, graduating 
in 1845. After leaving College he engaged in the ministry. He preached one year in Pitts- 
burg, Pa., three years in Port Gibsou, Miss., seven years at Woodville, Miss., next at Baton 
Rouge, La., then at Fayetteville, Ark., at which place he also occupied the position of Presi- 
dent of Arkansas College. The college was broken up and destroyed during the war. In 
1863, he came to Cincinnati, and remained there between two and three years, preaching and 
engaged in literary labors. 

In 1864, Mr. Baxter published a volume called Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, or Scenes 
and Incidents of the "War in Arkansas. This work was received with great favor, was highly 
commended by the leading journals of the country, and passed through several editions in a 
phort time. Entire chapters of the work were copied by the New York Tribune. 

During his stay in Cincinnati he wrote several "War Lyrics, which appeared in Harper's 
Weekly. Some of these were very extensively copied, and were recited at Mass Meetings 
by Kidd, Murdoch, and other popular elocutionists. 

Mr. Baxter published, in 1852, a volume of Poems which was well received. He has 
contributed largely to periodical literature, having written for the Ladies' Repository of Cin- 
cinnati, The Southern Literary Messenger, the Millennial Harbinger, and a number of other 
journals. He has aided in the preparation of several books which were sold by subscription, 
among them a large volume called the Loyal West in the Times of the Rebellion. His hymn 
called Let Me Go has found its way into at least a dozen hymn-books and collections of 
sacred music. 

For the last seven years Mr. Baxter has been the pastor of the Christian Church at New 
LislKjn, Ohio. One of his sermons with his portrait may be found in a handsome volume 
called The Living Pulpit of the Christian Church. He is still engaged in active literary 
labor, writing almost every week for some periodical. He is also preparing a Biography 
of Elder Walter Scott, a very prominent minister of the religious body known as the Dis- 
ciples of Christ. 

Y 



370 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

E. Delafield Smith, 1826 , counsellor-at-Iaw in the city of New York, was born In 

Rochester, and graduated at the University of New York, in 1846. He has published two 
poems, AoidaB, and Destiny, besides sundry law-books. 

RiCHAKD FuRMAN, D.D., 1816 , 18 a native and resident of South Carolina. He pub- 
lished, 1859, a volume, The Pleasures of Piety and Other Poems. 

Theophilus H. Hill, 1836 , a native of Raleigh, N. C, and a lawyer by profession, 

published a volume, Hesperus and Other Poems, 1861, said to be the first book published in 
t,he Confederacy. 

James Barron Hope, , a native of Hampton, Va., published, in 1857, a volume, 

Leoni di Monota and Other Poems. Among his separate pieces is one on The Charge at 
Balaklava, which has received high commendation. 

Anthony M. Keilet, , lawyer, one of the Confederate prisoners taken at Peters- 
burg, and sent North, wrote while in prison, at Point Lookout and at Elmira, a volume of 
poems, descriptive of his experience and of prison life. The volume is called, In Vinculis, 
or The Prisoner of War, 18(36. 

Samuel Yates Levy, 1827 , of Savannah, a Hebrew gentleman, a lawyer by profession, 

published in 1856 a play in five acts, called The Italian Bride. He has also written occa- 
sional poems. 

Gen. Henrt R. Jackson, 1820 , was born and educated at Athens, Ga., his father at 

one time being Professor in the College there. Gen. Jackson is by profession a lawyer. He 
giiined military distinction, first in the Mexican war, and then in the late war. He was 
United States Minister at Vienna from 1853 to 1858. He published, in 1850, a volume called 
Talluiah and Other Poems. 

Elias Marks, M. D., , a Hebrew gentleman of education, established many years 

ago, near Columbia, S. C, a seminary for teaching young ladies, which was eminently suc- 
cessful. Dr. Marks has written Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a translation from the Greek ; and 
Elfreide of Guldal, a Scandinavian Legend, and other Poems. 



P. H. Hayne. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne, 1831 , of Charleston, has acquired con- 
siderable reputation, particularly as a lyric poet. 

Mr. Hayne was born and educated in Charleston, S. C, and is a resident there. Besides 
numerous poetical contributions to periodicals, he has published the following volumes : 
Poems, 1855 ; Sonnets and other Poems, 1857 ; Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos, with 
Poems Lyrical, Miscellaneous, and Dramatic, 1860. Mr. Hayne gives abundant evidence of 
literary culture, and of an intimate acquaintance with the best English, old and new. He 
excels chiefly in lyrical poetry, and has written some admirable sonnets. "Mr. Hayne has 
an intense love of nature ; a rich imagination, quick and bold ; a limited power of narrative 
structure ; and a true sense of the beauty of words. His poetry is alive witli pent passion, 
glowing yet repressed; a tropical wealth of emotion, touched here and there with a dash 
of quaintness or a flaw of afl"ectatiou. He is fervent, but sometimes feeble; musical and 
dainty in phraseology; full of earnestness, tenderness and delicacy."— 7. Wood Davidson. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 371 

OCTOKKK. — A SONNKT. 

The passionate summer 's dead ! the sky 's aglow 

With roseate flushes of matured desire ; 
The winds at eve are musical and low 

As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre, 

Far up among the pillared clouds of fire, 
Whose pomp in grand procession upward grows 
With gorgeous blazonry of funeral shows, 

To celebrate the summer's past renown. 

Ah me ! how regally the heavens look down, 
Overshadowing beautiful autumnal woods. 

And harvest-fields with hoarded increase brown. 
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods, 

That lift their solemn dirges to the sky. 

To swell the purple pomp that floateth by. 

Geoege H. Miles, 1824-1871, was a native of Baltimore, and Professor at one time in Em- 
metsburgh, Maryland. He was a poet of considerable repute. He published : Mahomet, a 
drama ; De Soto, a drama ; Christine, a troubadour story in verse. He wrote several spirited 
war songs dui'iug the late war. 

John D. Betant, M. D., , a native and resident of Philadelphia, though not an 

author by profession, has a turn towards literature, and has redeemed the time from his 
duties as a physician, to write several important works. Dr. Bryant was educated an Episco- 
palian, being the son of an Episcopal minister, but in 1841 embraced the faith of the Catholic 
Church. His publications have been mostly on religious subjects : Pauline Seward, a tale, 
tracing the course of his mind in his conversion to the Catholic Church ; The Immaculate 
Conception a Dogma, written after the promulgation of the Papal decree on this subject ; Re- 
demption, an elaborate poem upon the same subject as the Paradise Lost ; The Dark Ages, a 
pamphlet. The most popular of these is Pauline Seward. 

Dr. Bryant is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Edward Young, 1818 , is the author of a volume called The Ladye Lillian and Other 

Poems. Mr. Young was bom and educated in England. In early life he came to America, 
and settled in Trenton, N. J. Thence, at nineteen, he went to Wisconsin, where in 18;}9 he 
married. Afterwards he went to South Carolina, and thence to Georgia, where he still lives. 

John T. Humphreys, 1838 , a native and resident of Lynchburg, Va., published in 

London, in 1866, a volume of poetry which gives evidence of a cultivated taste and no little 
poetical fancy. The title of the book is Eros, a Series of Connected Poems, by Lorenzo 
Somerville. Mr. Humphreys, after graduating at Randolph Macon College, Virginia, in 
1859, went abroad and spent two years at Berlin, studying the German language and litera- 
ture. Running the blockade, he returned to Virginia in 1863, and served in the Confederate 
army until disabled by a wound in the head which unfitted him for further service. Having 
a literary turn, and unable from his wound to engage in active pursuits, he devoted himself 
to study, and in 1866 went to London and published the volume of Poems already named. 
They are the first efi"orts of a young poet ; and as the title indicates, are all on one theme, the 
author writing throughout, and evidently by no fiction, in the character of a lover. Mr. 
HumpUreys, it is undei-stoud, has another volume nearly ready for the press. 



372 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

TIME. 

There is no dial in the clime 

Of yoiith, because it has no shade 

Upon its smooth and even grade, 
And whence the need of marking time^ 

TO NORA. 
I brought a blossom from the garden bed, 
Sweet was its fragrance, and its face was red; 
But ere I saw thee, it was pale and dead. 

I found a shell upon the leafy wold, 

Its lips were soft, its dress was blue and gold; 

But ere I saw thee, all its dyes were cold. 

My heart I bring thee from the inner shrine. 
Breathe but one hope around it, it will shine, 
And wear a hue unchangingly divine. 

A drop of amber fell upon a bee,* 

And thus pi-eserved it from corruption free; 

Thus would I live in love that comes from thee. 

* See Martial's Epigrams. 

Augustus Julian Riiqitiee, , popularly known as Judge Requier, has proauced 

the following volumes : The Spanish Exile, a play in blank verse; The Old Sanctuary, a pre- 
revolutionary romance, the scene in South Carolina ; Marco Bozzaris, a tragedy ; Poems. 

Barnard Shipp, 1813 , is the author of two volumes of poetry, which have been well 

received: Fame and Other Poems; The Progress of Freedom and Other Poems. Mr. Shipp 
is a native of Natchez, Miss., where his youth and early manhood were spent. His later 
years have been passed in Louisville, Ky. 

James Ryder Randall, 1839 , is the Tyrtseus of the late war. He has not published 

any volume, but his war lyrics, particularly his Maryland, my Maryland, and one or two 
others, spoke to the heart of seven millions of people as nothing else probably that was 
written during the war. Mr. Randall is a native of Baltimore, of French and English ex- 
traction, " with a dash of Irish." He was educated at the Catholic College in Georgetown, 
and went to Point Coupee, La., to edit a newspaper. At the close of the war he settled in 
Georgia. 

A. D. F. Randolph. 

Anson D. F. Eandolph, 1820 , a bookseller of New York, has 

written some beautiful lyrics, which, after having gone the rounds of the 
newspapers, were collected by a brother in the craft, Mr. Charles Scribner, 
and published in a dainty volume, under the title of Hopefully Waiting. 

Mr. Randolph was born at Woodbridge, N. J. At the age of four he went to New York, 
and has lived there ever since. He " graduated " at one of the public schools of that city at 
the age of ten. Whatever knowledge of culture he has since received, has been gained 
by private study. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME 



373 



OUR BABY. 



Of all the darling children 

That ever a household blessed. 
We place our baby for compare 

With the fairest and the best. 
She came when last the violets 

Dropped from the hand of Spring; 
When on the trees the blossoms hting- 
Those cups of odorous incense swung - 

When dainty robins sing. 



September, 1858. 



How glowed the early morning 

After a night of rain, 
When she possessed our waiting hearts 

To go not out again. 
'Dear Lord," we said, with thankful speech, 

"Grant we may love thee more 
For this new blessing in a cup 

That was so full before 1 " 



This year, before the violets 

Had heralded the Spring, 
And not a leaf was on the trees. 

Nor robin here to sing. 
An angel came one solemn night, 

Heaven's glory to bestow. 
And take our darling from our sight: 
What could we, Lord, at morning light, 

But weep, and let her go ! 



September, 1860. 



How dark the day that followed 

That dreary night of pain ; 
Those eyes now closed, and never more 

To open here again ! 
' Dear Lord," we said, with broken speech, 

"Grant we may love thee more 
For this new jewel in the crown 

Where we had two before I" 



Erastus W. Ellsworth, 1822 , is a native and a resident of East Windsor Hill, Conn. 

He graduated at Amherst in 1844, and studied law. Having a predilection for mechanism, 
he lias devoted his time chiefly to the business of invention, and has patented several valu- 
able machines of great advantage to the public, as well as of profit to himself. He pub- 
lished about twenty years ago some admirable poems in Sartain's and Putnam's magazines, 
and in 1865 he issued a volume of Poems. Since that, the reading public has not heard 
from him. The presumption is that machinery and steam have silenced the Mase. The 
short lyric quoted below, taken from the collection of 1855, could have been written by no 
one who was not at heart a poet. 
82 



374 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

SHAKESPEARE. 
What more extolling, from the tongue of Fame, 
Can Shakespeare need than his suggested name. 
Who, in a volume so compactly writ, 
Has hived the honey of all human wit. 
Praise suits, where merit in a corner lies, 
But seems uncomely to the acknowledged wise. 
Praise suits, where laboring Art, at times, succeeds, 
And the shrewd reader pardons as he reads; 
But fails, in wonder, where the leaves dispense 
Infinite resource of intelligence — 
Where the great Player, at his game of chess. 
Frolics through all, to glorious success — 
Thrids, with exulting ken a boundless maze; 
Plays with his kings, and kings it in his plays. 
Swan of the Avon ! Genius of the Thames, 
"That so didst take Eliza and (king) James!" — 
Muse of so vast a flight, so ample pinion, 
Whose name is as the name of a dominion I 
Though kings be great, give glory to the pen; 
A whole-souled Poet is the king of men: 
King and high-priest, one bard, at least, has been. 
Lo! where we lesser Levites pause and quail, 
How grandly goes before, within the veil, 
Our great Melchizedec, without compeers. 
Without progeniture, nor end of years. 

EOBEET W. Wright, 1816 , was born in Ludlow, Vt. ; graduated at Tale College, in 1842; 

admitted to the Suffolk bar in Boston, in 1845 ; practised law in Wisconsin for twelve years ; 
removed to Connecticut in 1857, where he mainly devoted himself to journalism for about 
fifteen years, editing successively the Waterbury Journal, Hartford Daily Post, New Haven 
Daily News, Daily Register, and Daily Lever, besides filling the office of Judge of Probate 
for one year, and that of Executive Secretary of State for three years, and writing for vari- 
ous magazines and other journals than those above named. He is at the present time (1872) 
filling the chair of editor-in-chief of the Richmond (Va.) Daily and Weekly State Journal. 

Mr. Wright has cultivated the Muses more as a matter of recreation, it would seem, than 
with any view to build up a reputation as a poet. He has published three poems only, two in 
book-form, and one in brochure. The titles of these are : The Church Knaviad, or Horace in 
West Haven, by Horatius Flaccus, a satirical mock-heroic poem of three hundred and seventy 
six-line stanzas ; The Vision of Judgment, or the South Church, Ecclesiastical Councils, 
viewed from Celestial and Satanic Stand-points, by Quevedo Redivivus, Jr., a satire in three 
cantos, written in the Italian or Don Juan stanza; aud The Pious Chi-Neh, or a Veritable 
History of the Great Election Fraud, done in verse by U. Bet, a humorously illustrated 
pasquinade of seventy stanzas, on the election of 1871, in Connecticut, modulated after Bret 
Harte. Of the first-named of these productions, the Home Journal, edited at the time by 
N. P. Willis, without knowing the author, said : "The preface is one of the best ever written to 
express the proper office of a preface, and the author of it, whoever he may be, is a satirist 
who either is, or ought to be, famous." Of the second-named work, the London Times, to 
whose critical editor an American gentleman had presented a copy, says : "The incidents 
of the poem are entirely local, and yet it rises, in some of its passages, to the dignity of a 
national satire. It is to be regretted that the author did not laud his Peri in Washington, 
and make the poem what it should have been in this respect, a national one ; for it is the 
sharpest satire ever written by an American." And of the Pious Chi-Neh (chief Nehemiah), 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 375 

the Tale College Courant, across the political sympathies of which the poem sharply runs, 
Bays: — "This poem is attributed to the gifted pen of R. W. Wright; but whether this gen- 
tleman wrote it or not, it is clearly not the work of a poetaster. Throughout are evidences 
of skill and practice, and here and there unmistakable touches of a master-hand. The satire is 
keen, and some of its slashes lay the flesh open to the bone. The writer, whoever he is, wields 
a trenchant pen, and all the more severe because the blows descend in 'honeyed plirase.'" 

SEA-WEED. 



Oh, call us not weeds of the sea, 
Mere weeds of the restless seal 
For we are bright flowers. 
And dwell in gay bowers, 

Down under the sea; 
lu the sunless caves 

Of the sweet sea-maid 
Where the coral is wrought 
With pearls inlaid, 
And the beautiful star-eyed ray is seen. 
Lighting the path of the coral queen: 
There dwell we, 
Down under the sea! 



Then call us not weeds of the sea, 
Mere weeds of the thriftless seat 
For we dwell in sweet bowers, 
Sweet coralline bo were, 
Down under the sea; 
Where the delicate rays 
Of the star-beam fall, 
In a shower of pearls. 
Through the sea-maid's hall. 
And the laughing naiads sing their loves 
In the motionless depths of the coral groves; 
There dwell we, 
Down under the sea! 



Then call us not weeds of the sea, 
Mere weeds of the pathless sea! 
For never were flowers, 
In upland bowers, 

More fair than we; 
And we dwell far down 

In the fathomless brine. 
Where the gold-fish quarries 
His amber mine, 
And the glow-worm, seen by the light of a star. 
Mellowly twinkles like crystalliuo spar; 
There dwell wo, 
Down under the sea! 



376 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Then call us not weeds of the sea, 
Mere weeds of the restless sea 1 
For the sunniest bowers 
Of eartn are ours, 
** Down under the sea; 
"Where the tiniest ray, 

By the diamond caught, 
Sparkles and gleams 
Like a seraph's thought — 
Sparkles and gleams on the emerald air 
Like the first weird flash of a falling star; 
There dwell we, 
Down under the sea! 

Walt Whitman. 

Walter Whitman, 1819 , is the most singular instance on record 

of a successful poetical iconoclast. Holding in contempt all the hitherto 
recognized laws of verse, he has been a law to himself, writing according to 
his " own sweet will," and yet, unlike most literary nullifiers, has been suc- 
cessful. We may not be able to scan his verse, or to reduce it to any known 
scheme of prosody, yet every one's ear tells him the lines are rhythmical. 
As with his verse, so with his matter. He takes subjects accepted in all 
ages as essentially vulgar and prosaic, and creates out of them forms of deli- 
cacy, grace, and beauty. 

Mr. Whitman was born at West Hills, N. Y. Like Artemus Ward and other illustrious 
countrymen, he began life as a printer. He then became successively a school-teacher, an 
editor, and a clerk in the government ofBces at Washington. From 1865 to 1870 he was clerk 
in the Attorney-General's oiBce, 

His life may be called, in one sense, shiftless. He has not attained to, probably has never 
even sought after, social distinction and advancement. Like the genial La Fontaine, he is 
content to live to himself and to his friends, quite regardless of the world's opinion. Not 
that his life has been a dissipated one. On the contrary, Whitman is a rather rigid moralist, 
but a strong up-bubbling of animal spirits leads him to do and say things which offend so- 
ciety. Moreover, he is one of those strongly magnetic characters that have the gift of attract- 
ing, even fascinating others. 

The article entitled The Carpenter, which appeared in Putnam's Magazine for January, 
1868, is a half-way sketch of this curious kind of personage. He appears aa the peace-maker, 
the preventer of sin and shame, the friend of the children, the lover of all, who searches the 
heart at a glance, and attracts irresistibly, by his simple, unheralded presence. The sketch 
receives such delicate vanishing touches that the reader is finally left in doubt as to 
whether Whitman is really the character, or whether it is not the Son of Man himself. The 
thought is a bold one, and is redeemed from blasphemy only by its earnest sincerity. It 
shows how great is the spell exercised by the wanderer-poet over his circle of friends. 

Whitman is not a prolific writer. His first work appeared in 1855, under the title Leaves of 
Grass. In 1865 appeared Drum Taps. In 1867 appeared a third volume, including the two 
former, and some other poems by way of a sequel. These, and a few uncollected pieces, 
make up all that the author has put forth in print. It is enough, however, to enable us to 
recognize his peculiar genius. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 377 

Walt "Whitman is a radical, an iconoclastic democrat. The feudal, the aristocratic, the 
traditional are in his eyes well enough in themselves as a past, aa a teacher, but they will 
not serve the coming need^ of the country. American talent must seek for itself other, less 
conventional modes of expression. There must be freedom from rule and precedent, sponta- 
neity, and truthfulness to surrounding nature. And aa the principle of democracy is that 
all are alike interesting and are akin in essence if not in development, so the poet — if we can 
indeed call his unrhymed, uumetrical utterances poetry — gives us the average of life, rather 
than life in its highest, most differentiated types. He feels himself akin to the farmer, the 
blacksmith, the lowly of every class, — even to the vicious and morally degraded, for they too 
are his brethren. He does not present them to us, as Dickens does, with a view to excite our 
laughter or our tears, or as Scott, for instance, has done, with a certain aristocratic con- 
descension. He shows them to us simply as our brethren and our equals. Whitman even 
goes one step further. In his wide-reaching democratic sympathies he scarcely has leisure 
for the individual ; his vision takes in rather the entire class, or society at large. His poetic 
sketches are not even democratic portraits, but so many kaleidoscopic views of restless, shift- 
ing, human life as it surges past the poet's gaze. 

His diction is extremely terse and idiomatic. The words come quick and apt ; the general 
thought sweeps along with a vigorous, unimpeded flow. The atmosphere is pure and brac- 
ing. But, as might be anticipated, there is not much harmony, and scarcely even an attempt 
at symmetry. He makes no pretense to giving us anything well rounded oflf. His utter- 
ances are those of a keen-eyed, whole-souled, philosophic spirit, — who sees each object in its 
real shape and true light, for a moment, but can linger over none. 

From whatever point of view we may consider him, he is, if not a true poet, at least a 
poetic nature. He is eminently original and inspiriting. He gives us the impression that 
we are in company with one who sees with every-day eyes or commonplace soul. Like Goethe, 
he looks upon men and the world as though they were fresh from the hands of the Creator 
and had never been studied before. However much he may have failed, however sorely he 
may have sinned against our preconceived notions and tastes, this will remain his merit, 
that he has aroused the public from dull conventionality and imitation, and set us upon 
independent thinking. 

The lines quoted below are taken from a poem recited before the American Institute, New 
York, 1871. 

AFTER ALL, NOT 'JO CREATE ONLY. 
After all, not to create only, or found only. 
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded, 
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free; 
To fill the gross, the turbid bulk with vital religious fire; 
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate; 
To obey as well as command — to follow, more than to lead; 
These also are the lessons of our New World ; 
—While how little the New, after all — how much the Old, Old World 1] 

Long, long, long, has the grass been growing. 
Long and long has the rain been falling, 
Long haa the globe been rolling round. 



Come, Mnse, migrate from Greece and Ionia; 

Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts. 

That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus' wanderings; 

Placard *^Removed'' and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus: 

Bepeat at Jerusalem-place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, aud on Mount Moriah; 

32* 



378 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and Carman, French, and 

Spanish Castles; 
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere — a wide, untried domain awaits, demands 

you. 



Responsive to our summons, 

Or rather to her Iqng-nurs'd inclination, 

Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation. 

She comes! this famous Female — as was indeed to be expected; 

For who, so ever-youthful, 'cute, and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such 
as those, 

When ofFer'd quarters with all the modem improvements. 

With all the fun that's going — and all the best society? 

She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown; 

I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance; 

I mark her step divine — her curious eyes a-turning, rolling, 

Upon this very scene. 

The Dame of Dames! Can I believe, then. 

Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic, could none of them 
restrain her? 

Nor shades of Virgil and Dante — nor myriad memories, poems, old associations, mag- 
netize and hold on to her? 

But that she's left them all — and here? 



Bret Harte. 

Francis Bret B^rte, 1837 , is one of the few poets that have 

risen to fame by a single bound. His Heathen Chinee and his Condensed 
Novels took the public by surprise, and marked the author at once as a man 
of genius. 

Mr. Harte was born at Albany, N. Y,, in 1837, and is in part of Dutch origin. His father, 
who died whilst Bret was very young, was teacher in a school for young ladies in that city, 
and died poor. After the usual common schooling, Mr. Harte saw something of New York, 
as clerk in a store, and when seventeen went to California with his widowed mother. He 
walked from San Francisco to the mines at Sonora, and there opened a school. The mines 
at Sonora probably offered as little encouragement, fifteen or sixteen years ago, to an open- 
ing school, as any other quarter of the globe could have done, and Mr. Harte's experiment 
was brief, and by no means triumphal ; though it helped on his own self-education, by sug- 
gesting the use of mining-life in literature. 

He tried mining for a while, and then having picked up the readily acquired art of print- 
ing, he became a compositor in a newspaper office at Eureka, where he began life as an 
author by " setting up " various essays and contributing them to the journal in type. Dur- 
ing the absence of the editor he once controlled the journal, and incurred popular wrath 
for censuring a little massacre of Indians by the leading citizens and most remarkable men 
of the locality. His erring sympathies excited something like a mob, and doubtless in- 
volved the editor in endless apologies and explanations. At any rate, Mr. Harte went back 
to San Francisco, where, after working for a while as compositor, he was given an editorial 
place on The Golden Era. Then followed an unsuccessful newspaper enterprise of his own, 
— unsuccessful commercially, though The Californian, which he and Mr. Webb managed, 
was lively and agreeable literature, and merits remembrance for the publication of Mr. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 379 

Harte's delightful parodies, " The Condensed Novels." When the Overland Monthly was 
established, Mr. Ilarte was naturally and obviously the fit editor for it, and in his charge 
it achieved enviable distinction. He gave it tone and character, and imbued it, in a degree 
unprecedented, save with the publications which Charles Dickens edited, with the literary 
flavor of the editor. In other words, Mr. Harte founded a school, — aschool which ought to 
remove any lingering regrets for the failure of the educational establishment at the mines 
of Sonora. Mr. Harte published some small collections of verse in San Francisco. But 
in 1869, Fields, Osgood & Co., of Boston, brought out in handsome style The Luck of 
Roaring Camp and Other Stories, and since that have published in book-form The Con- 
densed Novels and two volumes of Poems. They have also, by the payment, it is under- 
stood, of a large salary, induced him to come East and to write statedly for the Atlantic 
Monthly. 

THE HEATHEN CHINEE. 
Which I wish to remark, — 

And my language is plain, — 
That for ways that are dark 

And for tricks that are vain, 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar. 
Which the same I would rise to explain. 

Ah Sin was his name; 

And I shall not deny 
In regard to the same 

What that name might imply; 
But his smile it was pensive and childlike, 

As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye. 

It was August the third; 

And quite soft was the skies; 
Which it might be inferred 

That Ah Sin was likewise; 
Yet he played it that day upon William 

And me in a way I despise. 

Which we had a small game, 

And Ah Sin took a hand: 
It waa Euchre. The same 

He did not understand ; 
But he smiled as he sat by the table, 

With the smile that was childlike and bland. 

Yet the cards they were stocked 

In a way that I grieve, 
And my feelings were shocked 

At the state of Nye's sleeve. 
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, 

And the same with intent to deceive. 

But the hands that were played 

By that heathen Chinee, 
And the points that he made. 

Were quite frightful to see, — 
Till at last he put down a right bower, 

Which the some Nye had dealt unto me. 



380 AMERICAN LITERATURE 



Then I looked up at Nye, 

And he gazed upon me; 
And he rose with a sigh, 

And said, " Can this be ? 
We are ruined by Chinee cheap labor," — 

And he went for that heathen Chinee. 

In the scene that ensued 

I did not take a hand. 
But the floor it was strewed 

Like the leaves on the strand 
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding. 

In the game "he did not understand." 

In his sleeves, which were long, 

He had twenty-four packs,— 
Which was coming it strong. 

Yet I state but the facts; 
And we found on his nails, which were taper,— 

Which is frequent in tapers, — that's wax. 

Which is why I remark, — 

And my language is plain, — 
What for ways that are dark. 

And for tricks that are vain. 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, — 

Which the same I am free to maintain. 

A NEWPORT ROMANCE, 

They say that she died of a broken heart 
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me) ; 

But her spirit lives, and her soul is part 
Of this sad old home by the sea. 

Her lover was fickle and fine and French: 

It was nearly a hundred years ago 
When he sailed away from her arms — poor wench- 

With the Admiral Rochambeau. 

I marvel much what periwigged phrase 
Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker, 

At what golden-laced speech of those modish days 
She listened — the mischief take her! 

But she kept the posies of mignonette 
That he gave; and even as their bloom failed 

And faded (though with her tears still wet) 
Her youth with their own exhaled. 

Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud 
Round spar and spire, and tarn and tree, 

Her soul went up on that lifted cloud 
From this sad old home by the sea. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 381 

And ever since then, when the clock strikes two, 

She walks unbidden fiom room to room, 
And the air is filled that she passes through 

TVith a subtle, sad perfume. 

The delicate odor of mignonette, 

The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet, 
Is all that tells of her story; yet 

Could she think of a sweeter way? 

I sit in the sad old house to-night, — 

Myself a ghost from a farther sea; 
And I trust that this Quaker woman might, 

In courtesy, visit me. 

For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn, 

And the bugle died from the fort on the hill, 
And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone, 

And the grand piano is still. 

Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two; 

And there is no sound in the sad old house, 
But the long veranda dripping with dew, 

And in the wainscot a mouse. 

The light of my study-lamp streams out 

From the library-door, but has gone astray 
In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt 

But the Quakeress knows the way. 

Was it a trick of a sense o'erwrought 

With outward watching and inward fret? 
But I swear that the air just now is fraught 

With the odor of mignonette I 

I opened the window, and seem almost — 

So still lies the ocean — to hear the beat 
Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast. 

And to bask in its tropic heat. 

In my neighbor's window the gas-lights flare. 

As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss, 
And I wonder how could I fit that air, 

To the song of this sad old house. 

And no odor of mignonette there is 

But the breath of mora on the dewy lawn; 
And mayhap from causes as slight as this 

The quaint old legend is born. 

But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume, 
Ai the spiced embalmings, they say, outlaat 



382 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 



The mummy laid in his rocky tomb, 
Awakens my buried past. 

And I think of the passion that shook my youth, 
Of its aimless loves and its idle pains, 

And am thankful now for the certain truth 
That only the sweet remains. 

And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade. 
And I see no face at my library-door; 

For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid. 
She is viewless for evermore. 

But whether she came as a faint perfume, 
Or whether a spirit in stole and white, 

I feel, as I pass from the darkened room. 
She has been with my soul to-night I 



Joaquin Miller. 

CiNcrNNATUs Heine Miller, 1841 , better known as "Joaquin" 

Miller, is another Western celebrity, whose appearance above the horizon 
was even more sudden and meteoric than that of Bret Harte. Miller's 
Songs of the Sierras, published in London in 1871, made him before the 
end of the year famous in both continents. 

Mr. Miller was born in a log-cabin, in what was then a wilderness, in the Wabash district 
of Indiana, where he had no opportunities of education. In 1851 the family emigrated to 
Oregon by the overland route — a journey of five months, across the deserts, and over the 
mountains and valleys that stretched away from the Missouri almost two thousand miles to 
the west, without the habitation of a civilized man. 

The farming life which his father adopted in Oregon did not suit the dreamy, restless boy. 
After three or four years' work on the farm, therefore, he left his home for the gold regions 
of California. 

The next fifteen years of his life were the wildest imaginable, and partook of almost every 
kind of bold and daring adventure that Bret Harte's poems have made so familiar to the 
public mind. At length, Miller settled down to the study of law, and was admitted to prac- 
tice, and in 1870 he was elected Judge. About the same time he published a small volume 
of poems, one of which bearing the name of "Joaquin," he has since that time assumed the 
same name for himself. 

In 1863, he married Miss Minnie Theresa Dyer, who as " Minnie Myrtle " was a poetical 
correspondent of a paper which he was temporarily editing. He called to introduce himself 
to her on Friday and married her on Sunday. They were divorced in 1870. 

In 1870, he went to Europe, and after travelling over the continent settled down in obscure 
lodgings in London. Here he made various attempts to bring his poems before the public, 
but for some months without success. At length, some critic, capable of seeing the marks 
of genius under the unwonted forms in which it had been clothed, brought the poems to the 
notice of a leading publishing house. Songs of the Sierras thereupon appeared, and created 
at once a sensation which has hardly been equalled since the time of Byrou. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 383 

American Hymnody. 

The history of the various Collections of Psalms and Hymns, which have 
been used in the American churches, is a chapter of no little interest in the 
history of our literature. A brief account therefore will be given of these 
several Psalm and Hymn Books, in connection with a brief notice also 
of some of the writers who have made original contributions to these 
collections. 

Psalm and Hymn Weiteks. 

The first Psalter prepared for use in public worship, in the American churches, origi- 
nated, as already explained on page 30, in the Massachusetts colony, and was familiarly 
known as The Bay Psalm Book. The first settlers had brought with them from Holland 
copies of a Book of Psalms, prepared by Henry Ainsworth, an exiled Brownist, and published 
in Amsterdam in 1612. But neither this version, nor that of Sternhold and Hopkins, was 
literal enough to suit the strict views of the early New England Reformers. Of Hymns, in 
our sense of the word, they knew nothing. They sang in public worship nothing but the 
Psalms of David, and those they wanted in a form as near as possible to the exact words 
of the original, and without regard to the graces of style. 

"About the year 1639, the New England Reformers resolving upon a new translation, the 
chief divines in the country took each of them a portion to be translated ; among whom 
were Mr. Welde and Mr. Eliot of Roxbury, and Mr. [Richard] Mather of Dorchester." — 
Cotton Mather^ s Magnolia, 

The result of the labors of these divines was the Bay Psalm Book already mentioned. It 
was first printed in 1640, and was for a long time almost exclusively used in the New 
England churches. It had, by 1750, passed through at least twenty-seven editions. The 
title of this venerable book was as follows: The Whole Book of Psalms faithfully translated 
into English metre. Whereunto is prefixed a discourse declaring not only the lawfulness, 
but also the necessity of the heavenly ordinance of singing Scripture Psalms in the churches 
of God. Imprinted, 1640." The book was revised at different times, by Rev. Henry Dunster, 
the first President of Harvard, by the Rev. Thomas Prince, and others. It continued in 
general and almost exclusive use in New England during the whole colonial period. 

Cotton Mather published in 1718 a new literal version of the Psalms, The Psalterium 
Americanum. It was in metre, but without rhyme, or, as the author himself says, " without 
any jingle of words at the end." It does not appear to have been used to any extent by the 
churches. 

Other original versions of the Book of Psalms, mostly of little value, were made by Rev. 

John Barnard, of Marblehead, Mass., 1752 ; R. Davidson, D.D., Carlisle, Pa., 1812 ; Davis 

(somewhere in Pennsylvania), 1813; Joseph P. Bartrum, Boston, 1833; George Burgess 
(afterwards Bishop of Maine), Boston, 1840; Samuel McClure, Lewi^ton, Pa., 1849 ; Abner 
Jones, New York, 1854-60; M. L. Hawley, New York, 1868. 

The first American edition of Sternhold and Hopkins was published at Cambridge, in 
1693. Tate and Brady was not reprinted in America until 1741. Watta's Hymns were 
reprinted the same year in Boston by Franklin, but did not come much into use until after 
the Revolution. 

The deficiencies in Dr. Watts's Version (he left several Psalms unrendered) were filled up by 
Joel Barlow (1755-1812, noticed elsewhere in this book) ; and also by Timothy Dwight, D.D., 
(1752-1817). These two further revised Watts throughout. Barlow's revision was "allowed 
to be sung" by the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 1787 ; and Dwigiit's 
was made by request of the Congregational Association of Connecticut, 17'J7, and adopted by 
them, and by the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1800. Dwight's paraphrase of Psalm 



384 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

137, " I love Thy Kingdom, Lord," has become universally popular at home, and has won 
some acceptance in England. 

The earliest American hymnist, as such, who still survives in his works, was the well 
known Samuel Davies, who succeeded Jonathan Edwards as President of the College of New 
Jersey. Davies's twelve hymns were published by Dr. Gibbons, 1769, and several of them 
are still in use. 

Benjamin Cleveland published a volume of hymns, of which the fourth edition appeared, 
Norwich, Conn., 1792. One of them is still popular, " could I find from day to day a near- 
ness to my God." 

Henry AUine (174S-1784) was born at Newport, R, I., and ministered at Falmouth, Nova 
Scotia. He published several treatises and sermons, and a volume containing four hun- 
dred and eighty-seven hymns. Of this the third edition appeared, Dover, Mass., 1797. Un- 
important. 

Lewis Baldwin published one hundred and fifty-two hymns, Philadelphia, 1808. Never used. 

William Bingham Tappan (1794-1849), long in the service of the American Sunday-School 
Union, published several poetical volumes ; but his perhaps best-known pieces, " There is 
an hour of peaceful rest," and "There is an hour of hallowed peace," appeared in his earliest 
book, New England and other Poems, Philadelphia, 1819. 

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), sixth President of the United States, wrote a number of 
hymns and versions of psalms, which appeared in Rev. Wm. P. Lunt's Christian Psalter, 
1841. His collected Poems of Religion and Society were published, New York, 1848 ; fom-th 
edition, Auburn, 1854. 

Dr. Asahel Nettleton's Village Hymns, which appeared 1824, went through many editions, 
and exerted at one time very considerable influence. The collection contained some origi- 
nals, as noticed below, b}' Mrs. Hyde, Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Phoebe Brown. 

Mrs. Phoebe H. Brown (1783-1861) contributed the popular lyric, " I love to steal awhile 
away," to Nettleton's Village Hymns. This collection also gave to the world nine hymns 
by Mrs. Anne Bradley Hyde, some of which are still in use ; and several by Mrs. Lydia 
Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865), well known as a poetess. 

Eliel Davis (1800 to about 1830) wrote "From every earthly pleasure." 

Abram Lucas Hillhouse (1792-1851) was author of a hymn which has been highly praised, 
" Humbly before Thine awful throne." 

The Episcopal Collection of Hymns, 1826, made known some hymns which have since 
come into more or less general use. Two were taken from an important volume now scarce, 
Songs by the Way, 1824, by George W. Doane (1799-1859), afterward Bishop of New Jersey ; 
this book contained several lyrics of considerable merit, besides the exquisite hymn, " Thou 
art the way." Henry U. Onderdonk, D. D., afterwards Bishop of Pennsylvania, contributed 
to the Protestant Episcopal Collection ten hymns, among them, "The Spirit in our hearts." 
Five by Dr. W. A. Muhlenberg appeared then, among them, " I would not live alway ; " his few 
lyrics were collected in 1859. One good hymn by Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) also ap- 
peared then ; his Poems were published in 1857 : and one by Rev. J. W. Eastburn (1797-1819), 
who with R. C. Sands wrote Yamoyden. Subsequent hymnists in the Episcopal Church are 
Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D.D., now Bishop of Western New York, author of Christian Ballads, 
etc.; William Croswell, D.D. (1804-1851), of Boston, whose Poems appeared 1861; and the 
Rev. John Henry Hopkins, whose Carols, Hymns, and Songs were published 1863. 

Samuel F. Smith, D.D., (born 1805,) contributed twenty-six hymns to the Baptist Psalmist, 
which he edited in 1843. George W. Bcthune, D.D., (1805-1862,) wrote a few hymns, most of 
which are in his Lays of Faith and Hope, 1848. Leonard Bacon, D.D., (born 1802,) of New 
Haven, has written one or two. Rev. George Duffield (b. 1818) has written hymns, notic- 
ably " Stand up for Jesus." The Rev. Edwin H. Nevin and Henry Harbaugh, D.D., of Penn- 
sylvania, are to be mentioned. More conspicuous work of this sort has been done by Ray 
Palmer, D.D., (born 1808,) now Secretary of the Congregational Union in New York. Some 
of his hymns have obtained nearly universal acceptance. His Hymns and Sacred Pieces 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 385 

■were collected in 1865. The venerable Thomas Hastings, Mus. Doc. (born 1784), published 
in 1815 one hundred and ninety-nine Devotional Hymns, some of wliich are well known. 
John S. Dwight, son of President Dwight, is author of "God bless our native land." Mrs. 
Sarah A. Miles, of BrattIel>oro, Vt., has written a few good hymns, specially " Thou who 
didst stoop below." Wm. H. Burleigh (born 1812) is represented by eleven pieces in Prof. 
Cleveland's book. 

The points Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell, have written a few hj'mns each : Mr. 
Bryant's, to the number of nineteen, were privately printed in 1^63. Mrs. Stowe's few 
sacred lyrics were collected 1867. The sisters Alice aiid Phoebe Gary have written some 
hymns; the hitter's "One sweetly solemn thought," is well known. Her Poems of Faith, 
Hope, and Love, appeared 1868. 

The Unitarian body, possessing much of the highest intellectual culture and activity of New 
England, have produced many hj'mnists, among whom the Rev. Edmund H. Sears, by his 
two exquisite Christmas hymns, holds the first rank. It is suflacient further to name John 
Pierpont, Jones Very, W. II. Furness, James Freeman Clarke, F. H. Hedge, Andrew Norton, 
N. L. Frothingham, Henry Ware, Jr., W. B. 0. Peabody, T. W. Higginson, Samuel Johnson, 
and Samuel Longfellow. 

In translating foreign hymns America has done something, and part of that something 
•well. Dr. Ray Palmer h;is rendered a few Latin hymns excellently. The version, " sacred 
Head, now wounded," (1840,) of a great Passion hymn, which comes to us from St. Bernard 
through Paul Gerhardt, by James W. Alexander, is a masterpiece and model. Dr. Henry 
Mills, of Auburn, in his Horas Gerraanicas (1845, second edition, enlarged, 1856) has ti-ans- 
lated one hundred and seventy-two German hymns, but not well. Dr. John Williams, 
since Bishop of Connecticut, published in 1845 a small volume, now scarce. Ancient Hymns 
of Holy Clement. The fine paraphrase, " Shepherd of tender youth," of the earliest Christian 
hymn (Clement of Alexandria), is believed to be American. The Hon. E. C. Benedict, Dr. 
E. A. Washburne, and the Rev. S. W. DufSeld, have translated more or less extensively from 
the Latin. 

Psalm and Hymn Books. 

The old Bay Psalm Book and the other collections used during the colonial period have 
already been named. 

The Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1789 set forth Tate and Brady, with 
twenty-seven hymns. In 1808 thirty were added, and in 1827 these were enlarged to two 
hundred and twelve, while an abridgment of Tate and Brady, with a few psalms from other 
sources, was supplied. This provision has been bound up with the Prayer-Book from 1827 
till now. A few private selections have been put forth for use in irregular or week-night 
services; and in 1865 sixty-five Additional Hymns were set forth, but they have not been 
universally received. For the lat-t few years Hymns Ancient and Modern, and some other 
Collections, have been used in many padshes, subject to the Bishop's licensure. 

Among the Lutherans the first English hymn-books were Dr. Kunze's, 1795 ; Strebeck's, 
1797; Williston's, 1«0C; all published in New York. The Collection of the New York Min- 
isterium (1814, enlarged, 1834) was long and widely used. That of the Tennessee Synod ap- 
peared 1815 ; Sfc- ' e<lition, 1838 ; two subsequent editions, 1850, 1857, met the local demand. 
The Ohio Synod p jhed one in 1845, afterwards revised. More extensively circulated 
than any of these w. i the General Synod's Collection, 1828, revised 1850 and 1852. The 
recent collection of the Gonenil Council, forming the chief portion of their Church Book, 
(Philadelphia, 1868,) was prepared with great care, and had for its basis a larger acquaintance 
with hymnic facts and materials than luis generally been shown by American compilers. 

The German Reformed Psalms and Hymns appeared 1834. 

The Moravian collections are reproduced from English ones of the same body. 

The Reformed Dutch Communion used for many years a selection of Psalms and Hymns 
prepared for them in 1789 by Dr. John H. Livingstone, revised 1813, with additional hymus, 
1831 ; enlarged and rearranged in one volume, 1847. 

33 Z 



C8G AMEPwICAN LITEPvATUrwE. 

The Presbyterians for a long time used, as mentioned already, Barlow's, and then Dwignf ?, 
version of Watts. In 1828 they published a collection of Psalms and Hymns, which was suc- 
ceeded by other editions and compilations in 1830, 1834, and 1843. The last has been gener- 
ally used by the Old School Presbyterians to this day, so far as it was not displaced by their 
Hymnal, 18(37. The New School Presbyterians used mostly the Church Psalmist, 1843; 
Supplement, 1859. Various other collections, however, have been employed among these 
two bodies; of which we may mention The Cliristian Psalmist, 1836; Beman's Sacred Lyrics, 
1841; Parish Psalmody, Philadelphia, 1S44; AV. C. Dana's Collection, Charleston, 1859 ; Dr. 
Boardmau's Supplement to the Old School Psalms and Hymns, Philadelphia, 1860; Dr. C. S. 
liobinson's Songs for the Sanctuary, New York, 1 865 ; and The Sacrifice of Praise, New York, 
1869. One or two new books of importance will soon appear. 

For the Methodists in America John Wesley prepared before his death a Sunday Senice 
from the Book of Common Prayer, with a Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Lord's 
Day. It was not much used, however. Their official Pocket Hymn-Book appeared about 
1802 (it had been preceded by others with similar titles), and a Supplement to it in 1810. 
This was revised in 1S36, and their present collection was prepared in 1849. The Southern 
Methodists use a book of their own, published in 1847; and the Methodist Protestants, 
Wesleyan Methodists, and other smaller sects, also have separate collections. Mr. David 
Creamer of Baltimore, an eminent American hymnologist, has done much to elucidate the 
Wesleyan poetry, in his Methodist Hyninology, N. Y., 1848. 

The Baptists early exhibited much compiling activity, feeling the need of revival and 
camp-raeetiug hymns to meet the craving stimulated by Geo. Whitefield's preaching; and 
shortly before and after 1800 appeared many private collections of theirs, none of which de- 
serve special mention. Winchell's Watts, and Watts & Rippon, were both much used among 
them for a time. Their official book. The Baptist Psalmist, appeared in 1843 ; Supplement in 
1847; The Baptist Harp, 1849; Pilgrim's Harp (German), 1854; Devotional Hymn Book, 
1864; Baptist Hymn Book, 1871. Yarious other books are more or less used by that body, 
and in the South is used Wesley's Baptist Psalmody, Charleston, 1850. 

The Congregationalists have also been very active, having no official hymnal. Dwight's 
revision of Watts's Psalms, and Worcester's Watts and Select, were largely used till 1830 or 
later. The Hartford Selection (1799) went through various editions. Of more recent books 
we may mention Mason & Green's Church Psalmody, 1S31 ; the Connecticut Collection, 1856; 
Nason's Congregational Hymn-Book, 1857 ; and eminently H. W, Beecher's Plymouth Collec- 
tion, 1855; and the Andover Sabbath Hymn-Book, 1858. The last especially is a book of 
universal interest and value. 

The Unitarians also have produced a great number of Hymn-books. Anticipating the split 
in the Congregational body. Dr. Belknap's Sacred Poetry, 1795, marked an era ; it passed 
through a number of editions. The most widely circulated subsequent books have been, the 
Philadelphia Selection, by Eddowes & Taylor, 1812; the New York Collection, 1820 ; the 
Cambridge Selection, 1824 ; Dr. Greenwood's, Boston, 1830 ; the Chesliire Association's Chris- 
tian Hymns, 1844; and S. Longfellow and S. Johnson's Book of Hymns, 1848. These were 
mainly of the old school. More modern in tone, and noticeably characteristic, are Dr. Hedge's 
and Huntington's Hymns for the Church of Christ, 1853; Dr. J. F. Clarke's Disciples' Hymn- 
Book, 1855; and Longfellow and Johnson's Hymns of the Spirit, 18&4. The last is largely 
used by the extreme or Parkerite school. 

The early Universal ists vied in activity with the early Baptists. Their most popular Hymn- 
Books are, however, of later date ; S. and R. Streeter's Collection, 1829 ; that by Hosea Bal- 
lon, 1837 ; and Adams and Chapin's Hymns for Christian Devotion, 1846. 

The hjranic activity of America has been somewhat unintelligent and traditional, for the 
most part compiling merely from previous compilations. But a steady progression is visible 
in the work of late years, and much better things than we have yet attained may be hoped 
for in the future. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 387 

II. WRITERS ON LITERATURE AND CRITICISM. 

Lowell. 

James Russell Lowell, 1819 , excels in so many lines of effort 

that it is not easy to know in what class of writers to place him. The 
Cathedral and Under the Willows give him rank among our foremost poets. 
The Bigelow Papers show him to be inferior to none in humorous satire. 
His latest and most consummate efforts, however, as given in the two volumes 
Among My Books, and My Study Windows, seem to point to literary criti- 
cism as that in which he has achieved his greatest success. 

Mr. Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1838. 
He commenced the study of law, but soon relinquished it for letters. In 1855 he succeeded 
Longfellow as Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard, and this position he still holds. 

Lowell's first poetical production that attracted attention was A Year's Life, published in 
1841. This was followed bj- two other volumes of poems, published in 1844 and 1848 respec- 
tively. In 1848 appeared A Fable for Critics, a witty review in verse of the principal Ameri- 
can literati. In the same year there also appeared The Bigelow Papers, a political satire upon 
the United States at the time of the Mexican war. Subsequently, during the American civil 
war, Lowell published the second series of Bigelow Papers as a satirical protest against the 
quasi neutrality of Great Britain. 

His more recent productions in verse are, The Cathedral, and Under the Willows. 

For the first five years of The Atlantic Monthly, Mr. Lowell was its editor. He has also 
contributed to the North American and other reviews a number of literary and critical 
essays, delivered a course of warmly received lectures on the English Poets, and edited the 
works of Marvell, Donne, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley, in Little and Brown's series of 
the British Poets. Some of the best of Lowell's scattered essays have been recently col- 
lected and published in two volumes. Among My Books, and My Study Windows. 

Lowell is one of those writers who have not leaped but steadily grown into favor. Each 
successive work has been an improvement on its predecessor. The earliest of his publica- 
tions, A Year's Work, was criticised by Uillard as revealing in the author a lack of power of 
expression, a struggling, so to speak, o{ the word with the thought. Certainly no one who 
has read any of Lowell's recent productions will feel disposed to repeat the objection. The 
poet has attained the utmost grace and power of expression, and it almost seems as though 
the word were now overmastering the thought, the poet playing with his theme. 

As a satirist, Lowell has no equal in his own country, perhaps not among English writers 
of the century. His satire is not broad, like that of Saxe and Holmes, but quaint and subtle. 
The Bigelow Papers, written in Yankee dialect, have one special merit. They give that dia- 
lect in all its native raciness and truth, and expose the hoUowness of such doggerel as Sam 
Slick's, which sinks down by the side of the Bigelow Papers into the merest every -day vul- 
garism. 

Of Lowell's serious poetry we may say. in the main, that, while strictly original, it sug- 
gests to the reader a curious blending of Wordsworth's simplicity and Tennyson's subtlety 
of thought and diction. The latter has doubtless had the larger share in influencing Lowell's 
development. Lowell's verse has not the sweet, apjmrently unstudied, simplicity of Long- 
fellow's. It is somewhat too subtle for the average mind, and, as in The Cathedral, it loses 
itself sometimes in mysticism. 

As a critic, Lowell stands foremost among his countrymen. Others have eqiialled him in 
erudition, but uo one has succeeded so happily in blending profound and wide study with 



388 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

exquisite sj'mpathj' for the author or the work discussed. The article on Rousseau, for in- 
stance, could have been written only bj- one who had striven long and earnestly to find out, 
not what Rousseau should have been, but what he really was. In this respect, Lowell haa 
followed the lead of, and been strongly influenced by, the German critics whom he at times 
mentions rather slightingly. The only objection that can be urged against his literary 
essays is that the author occasionally sacrifices an exact shade of truth for a neat point. 
The truth is stated substantially, but thrown into the background by a brilliant corruscation 
of wit. 

THE MORAL IN SHAKESPEARE. 

I have said that it was doubtful if Shakespeare had any conscious moral intention in his 
writings. I meant only that he was purely and primarily poet. And while he was an Eng- 
lish poet in the sense that is true of no other, his method was thoroughly Greek, yet with 
this remarkable difference, — that while the Greek dramatists took purely national themes 
and gave them a universal interest by their mode of treatment, he took what may be called 
cosmopolitan traditions, legends of human nature, and nationalized them by the infusion of 
his perfectly Anglican breadth of character and solidity of understanding. Wonderful as his 
imagination and fancy are, his perspicacity and artistic discretion are more so. This coun- 
try tradesman's sou, coming up to London, could set high wits, like Beaumont, uucopiable 
lessons in drawing gentlemen, such as are seen nowhere else but on the canvas of Titian ; he 
could take Ulysses away from Homer and expand the shrewd and crafty islander into a 
statesman whose words are the pith of history. But what makes him yet more exceptional 
■was his utterly unimpeachable judgment, and that poise of -character which enabled him to 
be at once the greatest of poets, and so unnoticeable a good citizen as to leave no incidents 
for biography. His material was never far-sought ; (it is still disputed whether the fullest 
head of which we have record were cultivated beyond the range of grammar-school prece- 
dent !) but he used it with a poetic instinct which we cannot parallel, identified himself with 
it, }'et remained always its born and questionless master. He finds the Clown and Fool upon 
the stage, — he makes them the tools of his pleasantry, his satires, and even his pathos; he 
finds a fading rustic superstition, and shapes out of it ideal Pucks, Titanias, and Ariels, in 
whose existence statesmen and scholars believe forever. Always poet, he subjects all to the 
ends of his art, and gives in Hamlet tlie churchyard ghost, but with the cothurnus on, — the 
messenger of God's revenge against murder; always philosopher, he traces in Macbeth the 
metaphysics of apparitions, painting the shadowy Banquo only on the overwrought brain of 
the murderer, and staining the hand of his wife-accomplice (because she was the more re- 
fined and higher nature) with the disgustful blood-spot that is not there. We say he had no 
moral intention, for the reason, that as artist, it was not his to deal with the realities, but 
only with the shows of things; j-et, with a temperament so just, an insight so inevitable as 
his, it was impossible that the moral reality which underlies the mirage of the poet's vision, 
should not always be suggested. His humor and satire are never of the destructive kind ; 
what he does in that way is suggestive only — not breaking bubbles with Tlior's ham- 
mer, but pufling them away with the breath of a Clown, or shivering them with the light 
laugh of a genial cynic. Men go about to prove the existence of a God ! Was it a bit of 
phosphorus, that brain whose creations are so real, that, mixed with them, we feel as if we 
ourselves were but fleeting magic-lantern shadows ? 

But higher even than the genius we rate the character of this unique man, and the grand 
impersonality of what he wrote. What has he told us of himself? In our self-exploiting 
nineteenth century, with its melancholy liver-complaint, how serene and high he seems! 
If he had sorrows he made them the woof of everlasting consolation to his kind: and if, as 
poets are wont to whine, the outward world was cold to him, its biting air did but trace 
itself iu loveliest frost-work of fancy ou the many windows of that self-centred and cheerful 
soul. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 389 

Tuckerman. 

Henry Theodore Tuckerman, 1813-1871, was one of the ablest, as 
well as one of the most prolific of American writers on subjects connected 
with criticism. He was almost equally celebrated also as a biographer and 
a poet. His largest and best-known works are, Artist Life, and Essays Bio- 
graphical and Critical. 

Mr. Tuckerman was born in Boston. He was prepared for college, bnt did not graduate, 
his health at that time forbidding him to pursue an academic course. Under the advice of 
his phi'sicians, he was sent abroad at the age of twenty, and spent a year in Europe, chiefly 
in Italy. Three years later he made another voyage, spending nearly ten years in Sicily 
and Florence. Here he laid the foundation for that intimate acquaintance with Italian 
affairs which marked his subsequent writings. 

His literary labors began in 1835, with the publication of the Italian Sketch Book. This 
was followed by Isabel of Sicily, a romance, published in 1839. From that time onward Mr. 
Tuckerman continued to give to the world a series of successful works embodying the re- 
sults of his numerous journeyings abroad and at home and of his extensive studies. 

The best known, perhaps, are Artist Life, a collection of sketches of American painters, 
Thoughts on the Poets, The Optimist, a Memorial of Horace Greenough, Essays Biogi-aphical 
nd Critical, and the Book of the Artists, a collection of biographical and critical sketches 
of American artists and art in America. 

Besides these collected works, Mr. Tuckerman is also the author of a large number of 
pieces scattered through the pages of the leading American magazines. 

At one time Mr. Tuckerman was considered the first of American essayists. He can 
scarcely be said to occupy that high position at present. Not that his style of writing degen- 
erated ; it is as pleasing as it ever was. But it has been surpassed in depth and originality 
of thought by Whipple, and still more by Lowell. Tuckerman's style is marked by ease 
and by delicate discrimination rather than by strength. It was his good fortune, and also 
bis merit, at a time when the interest of the American public in its literature was dormant 
or almost dormant, to revive it, and to strengthen and foster the recollection of the early 
American authore and artists, as well as to further the claims of sound literary criticism. 

Mr. Tuckerman's last considerable work, finished not long before his death, was a Memoir 
of John Pendleton Kennedy, in 2 vols. 

^A^hipple. 

Edwin Perry "Whipple, 1819 , is probably, next to Lowell, the 

most capable as well as the most popular American critic and essayist. His 
two volumes entitled Character and Characteristic Men, and his volume on 
The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, are the publiciitions by which he 
has gained the greatest applause. 

Mr. Whipple is a native of Gloucester, Mass., and since 1837 has resided in Boston. He 
never attended college, but in consideration of his services to literature, he received in 1848 the 
honorary degree of A. M. He was for a number of years Superintendent of the Merchants' 
Exchange Reading Room in Boston. He has contributed largely to all tlie leading Amorican 
magazines, and delivered many single lectures and courses of lectures before college and 
other societies. Several collections of his essays and lecttires have been published. The 
best known and ablest are the two already named. Character and Characteristic Men, and 
The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth. The latter, especially, is a valuable contribution to 

33* 



390 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

English Letters, and gives perhaps a clearer and more graphic idea of the theme than any 
other work in the language. 

Mr. AYhipple's works are widely known and appreciated. His style is easy and attractive, 
and his treatment of his subjects is candid and skiliul. A uniform edition of his works, in 
6 vols., has lately appeared. 

Kate Field. 

Kate Field, , has published but one volume, Pen-Photo- 
graphs of Dickens's Headings, but she is very widely and favorably known 
as a critic on art and literature, and as a lecturer. 

Miss Field was bom in St. Louis, and educated in Massachusetts, and has resided at differ- 
ent times in New York, Boston, and Europe. She began writing as the Eloreiux' correspon- 
dent of the Boston Courier, Boston Transcript, and New Orleans Picayune. She became better 
known afterwards as the New York correspondent of the Springfield Republican, under the 
name of Straws, Jr. In 1867, she became connected with the New York Tribune, first as 
writer of dramatic criticisms on Ristori, and later as correspondent and writer of leading 
editorials. She wrote also at the same time for the Philadelphia Press and the Chicago 
Tribune. She is at present writing for Everj' Saturday (London) and the New York Tribune, 
Her principal magazine articles have been : Memorial of Mrs. Browning ; Last Days of Walter 
Savage Landor; Criticism on Fichte's Hamlet. 

Mrs. Mart (Lowell) Putnam, a sister of James Russell Lowell, has contributed to the 
North American Review and the Christian Examiner. Siie has also published Records of an 
Obscure Man, Tragedy of Errors, and Tragedy of Success. 

Delia Bacon, an American lady, published in London, in 1857, a curious book. Philosophy 
of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded. The object of this book was to prove that the Plays, 
universally attributed to Shakespeare, were really written by Lord Bacon ! The book was 
introduced with a Preface by Hawthorne. 

Moses Coit Tyler. 

Moses Coit Tyler, 1835 , Professor of the English Language and 

Literature in the University of Michigan, has made some admirable contri- 
butions to current literature. 

Mr. Tyler was born at Grisvvold. Conn. The family, soon after his birth, removing to 
Michigan, his boyhood was passed in Detroit. He graduated at Yale, in 1857 ; studied the- 
ology at New Haven and Andover, and preached in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., from 1860 to 1862. 
Then, on account of ill-health, he withdrew from the ministry ; and after spending a few 
months in Boston for the recovery of his health under Dio Lewis's system of exercises, he 
went to England, where he resided four years, engaged in teaching, lecturing, studying, and 
writing for American periodicals, chiefly The Independent, and The Nation. For the latter 
he contributed the article entitled American Reputations in England, which has since been 
republished in the volume of "Critical and Social Essays," issued by the publisher of that 
journal. Returning to America in the beginning of 1867, he engaged in public lecturing, 
and soon after accepted the Professorship of English Language and Literature in the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, which position he still holds. 

Prof. Tyler's publications, besides numerous articles in the newspapers, have been as fol- 
lows: An Account of A'^assar College; Popular Lecturing in England; The Brown villo 
Papers, a volume of essays on physical culture. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 391 

Prof. T3-ler is now unpaged in the study of American Ilistory, with a view to the produc- 
tion of an elaborate Ilistory of the United States, fn)m the close of the Revohitionary War 
througli the administrafions of the eailier ['residents. The rcscarclies ui»<m wliich he hiis 
entered for tliis work are o:i so large a scale, however, that they will reijuire niiiny years for 
their completion. 

Edward S. GouLn, 1808 , a New York merchant, has redeemed time from the pnranits 

of business to make many valuable coiitrii)utions to literature. Mr. Gould wjis horn at Litch- 
field, Conn., but has lived mostly in New York city, and is known as a New Yorker. He 
was one of the early contributors to the Knickerbocker, as a writer of tales and sketches. 
Later he contributed to Charles King's American, to tl>e New World, the Mirror, and tliu 
Literary World. In 18j6, he delivered a Lecture, American Criticism on American Literal 
ture. He published translations of several of Dumas's, Balzac's, and Victor Flugo's works. 
In 1843, he published The Sleep Rider, or the Old Boy in the Omnibus. His next literary 
work wiis an Abridgment of Alison's Ilistory of Europe. In 1850, appeared The Very Age, 
a comedy ; in ISGii, John Doe and Richard Roe, a story of New York city life ; in 1871, a Sup- 
plement to Duyckinck's History of the World. The work of Mr. Gould whicli of late years 
has attracted most attention, is one published in 1867, — Good English, or Popular Errors ia 
Language. 

Feancis J. Child, LL.D., 1825 , Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard Uni- 
versity, did a valuable service to American letters by his labors in superintending the 
American edition of the British Poets, in 130 vols. The amount of scholarly labor displayed 
in the biographical, historical, and critical notices in this edition is very great, and no small 
part of it was the work of Prof. Child himself, although he had several fellow-laborers, and 
it is not always easy to determine which is by him and which by others. The Spenser in 5 
vols., and the Ballads in 10 vols., are exclusively his, and both are admirable specimens of 
literary editing. The Ballads was evidently done with a loving hand, and remains the only 
English collection that may be called complete. 

Prof. Child was born in Boston, and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1846. He wsis 
tutor of Mathematics and afterwards of History; spent two years in Europe; and in 1851 
was appointed to his present chair, that of Rhetoric and Oratory. 

Richard Grant White. 

Richard Grant White, 1822 , is well known as the ablest Shakes- 
pearian editor and critic that has yet appeared in America. 

Mr. White is a native of New York city, and a graduate of the New York University, of 
the class of 1839. He studied both medicine and law, and was admitted to the bar in l8io. 
For the last twenty years he has given a large portion of time to the cultivation of letters, 
and his contributions to literature have been l)Oth numerous and valuable. 

His most important work is that which he has bestowed upon the elucidation of Shakes- 
peare. His first essay in this line w.is a large octavo, Shakespeare's Scholar, in 18G2, being 
historical and critical studies of the text, characters, and commentJitors, with an examina- 
tion of Mr. Collier's Folio of 16.32. This volume gave the author at once a high standing as 
a Shakespeare critic. It was followed in 1859 by An Essay on the Authorship of the Three 
Parts of King Henry VI. These works were preliminary to a larger one, namely, A New and 
Independent Criticiil Edition of Shakespeare's Works. This appeared in 1S57-1SIm, in 12 vols., 
8vo. It is a noble monument of taste and scholarship, and contains all that any ordinary 
reader wants for studying and enjoying Shakespeare. In connection with litis, but as an 
independent work, appeared A Life of Shakespeare, with an essay on his genius and on the 
rise of the English drama. 



392 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Since closing up his Shakespeare labors, Mr. White has produced a chatty volume, of much 
Talne, On Words and their Uses. 

During the first year of the war, some one ofTercd a prize of $500 for the best National 
Hymn. Twelve hundred poems were sent in for cuLiiyctition. None of them were deemed 
worthy, and the prize was not awarded. Mr. White made it the occasion of an essay, Na- 
tional Hymns, How they are Written and How they are not Written, giving in illustration 
Bome of the best and some of the worst specimens that bad been put in competition. After 
the close of the war, in 1866, he published another book on this subject. Poetry, Lyrical, 
Narrative, and Satirical of the Civil War. 

Mr. White has written at different times for the Courier and Inquirer, The World, the 
Galaxy, Putnam's, and the Atlantic Monthly, and for other magazines and papers. 

Rev. Henky Norman Hubson, 1814 , is a native of Cornwall, Vt. He graduated at 

Middlebury College in 1840. After spending some years as a public lecturer on Shakespeare, 
he became a clergyman in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He has pubhshed Lectures 
on Shakespeare in 2 vols., and also A Critical Edition of Shakespeare in 11 vols. 

"Mr. Hudson has enriched the literature of our language with the fruits of his studies, 
mastering the difBculties of the poet with wonderful ingenuity, seizing the spirit of his char- 
acterization with kindred subtlety, and, in a singularly nervous and racy style, presenting 
some of the finest specimens of critical analysis of which any modern writer can boast." — 
iVew; Quarterly Review. 

JosiAH Phillips Quincy, 1830 , a grandson of President Quincy, was bom in Boston, 

and graduated at Cambridge, in the class of 1850. He has published Manuscript Corrections 
from a Copy of the Fourth Eolio of Shakespeare; Lyteria, a Dramatic Poem ; and Charicles, 
a Dramatic Poem. 

Professor Corson. 

Hiram Corson, 1828 , Professor of the English Language and 

Literature in Cornell University, has made several valuable contributions 
to the department of English scholarship. He is also one of the ablest 
lecturers in the country, on the subject of English Literature. 

Prof. Corson was born in Philadelphia. From 1849 to 1856, he was connected with the 
Library of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, then in charge of the accomplished 
scholar and bibliographer. Prof. Chai'les C. Jewett, under whose guidance, and in the prep- 
aration of tlie catalogues of the Libraries of Congress and of the Smithsonian Institution, in 
accordance with the plan originated by Prof. Jewett for the stereotyping of a general alpha- 
betical catalogue of the Libraries of the United States, Mr. Corson made a careful study of 
Bibliography and the management of Libraries. The removal of Prof. Jewett from the 
Smithsonian Institution caused the grand catalogue scheme to fall through, and Mr. Corson 
was obliged to resort to teaching, in which he had already had considerable experience as a 
private tutor and as an assistant teacher in the Treemount Seminary at Norristowu, Pa., of 
which the Rev. Samuel Aaron, D.D., was principal. 

In 1859, Mr. Corson removed with his family to Philadelphia, and for some years devoted 
himself to teaching and lecturing on English Literatiire. In 1865, he was elected Professor 
of History and Rhetoric in Girard College, which position he resigned in 1866, to accept the 
Professorship of Rhetoric and of the English Language and Literature, in St. John's College, 
Annapolis. In 1870, he was elected to the chair of the English Language and Literature, 
Rhetoric and Oratory, in The Cornell University, which position he still holds. 

Prof. Corson has published the following works : Chaucer's Legeude of Goode Women, 



FROM 18 50 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 393 

containing an elaborate introduction on the Versification of Chaucer, and copious Glossarial 
and Critical Notes showing a wide range of early English reading ; An Elocutionary Manual, 
with an Introductory Essay on the study of Literature and the relations of Vocal Culture to 
an jUsthetic Appreciation bf Poetry ; Address on the occasion of his Induction as Professor 
in Girard College ; Iland-Book of Anglo-Saxon and Early English. The work last named is 
one of uncommon excellence and value. 

All of Prof. Corson's publications are remarkable for thoroughness and scholarship. Hia 
edition of Chaucer's Legende of Goode Women is a masterpiece in its way. Prof. Corson 
has prepared, with immense labor, a Thesaurus of Early English, containing a complete 
verbal and glossarial index of the Canterbury Tales, Piers Ploughman, Gower's Confessio 
Amantis, Wyckliffe's Bible, Spenser, and Chapman's Homer. The work awaits a publisher. 

Arthur Gilmax, A. M., 1837 , was born at Alton, 111., and educated in New York 

city, and at an early age entered upon commercial life. The confinement of business under- 
mining his health, he removed to Berkshire, Mass., where he was identified with the move- 
ments in favor of religion and education, and at the same time pursued bis favorite literary 
studies. In 1869, he published A Genealogy of the Gilman Family ; and in 1870, First Steps 
in English Literature. The latter is an admirable manual, and has already passed through 
several editions. Mr. Gilman has contributed to Appleton's Journal, Putnam's Magazine, 
Our Young Folks, The Riverside Magazine, and the American Educational Monthly. In 1871, 
he became the editor of the books and papers of the American Tract Society, Boston. 

Duyckinek Brothers. 

The brothers Duyckinek have bestowed a lasting benefit upon American 
letters by their invaluable work, The Encyclopaedia of American Literature. 
This work, in two large volumes, double-column octavo, is modelled after 
Chambers's Encyclopaedia of English Literature, but for thoroughness and 
every other desirable quality is superior to Chambers's. The Duyckincks' 
work may be supplemented (the continual and rapid growth of our litera- 
ture requires this), but it can never be superseded. It is the best, in fact 
the only, comprehensive and adequate exposition of American literature to 
the date of its publication, 1856. 

EvART AxJGUSTTis DuTCKiNCK, 1816 , the older of the brothers, was also the chief 

laborer in the production of the Cyclopaedia. Inl840, he began, in connection with Corne- 
lius Mathews, Arcturus, a journal of books- and opinions, which continued two or three 
years. In 1847, he began, with his brother George, the Literary World, which continued 
about seven years. The Encyclopaedia, the joint work of the brothers, was completed in 
1856. Evart published a supplement to it in 1866. Among his other publications are : "Wit 
and Wisdom of Sydney Smith; Ilistory of the War for the Union, 3 vols., 1865; Memoir of 
Francis L. Hawks; Memorial of John Allan, etc. 

George Long Dctckinck, 1823-186.3, graduated at the New York University in 1843. He 
studied law, but never practised. Besides his work in the Encyclopaedia and the Literary 
World, he published Lives of George Herbert, Bishop Ken, and Jeremy Taylor, and numer- 
ous essays and reviews. 

Both brothers were bom in New York, eons of th« well-known publisher, Evart Duyckinek, 
1765-1833. 



394 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Allibone. 

Samuel Austin Alliboxe, LL. D., 1816 , has made the entire 

literary world his debtors by his great work, the Dictionary of Authors. 

Dr. Allibone is a native and resident of Philadelphia. He is known almost exclusively by 
Lis one work, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and of British and American 
Authors, in 3 vols., large 8vo, filling 3,140 closely printed pages, and containing over 4.6,000 
authors, with 40 Indexes of subjects. The plan is to give a short life of each author, accom- 
panied by a list of his publications, and extracts from the opinions of the best critics iu re- 
gard to his standing and character. The work abounds also in literary anecdotes and curious 
information of an authentic character in regard to authors and authorship. A.s a mine of 
information on the subject of which it treats, it is unparalleled. By solitary and single- 
handed labor, protracted through twenty years, the author has achieved a work such as or- 
dinarily is accomplished only by the joint effort of a large number of laborers working in 
concert ; and the result is a monument of patient and productive industry which has few 
parallels in literary history. Besides this great work. Dr. Allibone has lately prepared an 
excellent text-book for Sunday-Schools, called The Union Bible Companion. 

Dr. Allibone has been Secretary and Editor of the American Sunday-School Union since 
the decease of Mr. Packard. 



James Wood Davidson. 

Prof. James Wood Davidson, 1829 , has done a signal service to 

letters by his exceedingly interesting and able work, The Living Writers 
of the South. This work, in its 635 well-filled pages, contains an amount 
and kind of information on the subject of which it treats that is nowliere 
else to be obtained. 

Professor Davidson was born in the County — then District — of Newberry, S. C. He was 
educated at the South Carolina College at Columbia, graduating with high distinction in 
1852. He early manifested a devotion to literature, and while in college spent his vacations 
reading in the College Library. 

From 1854 until 1859 he was Professor of Greek in the Mount Zion College, at ^Vinnsboro', 
S. C. From 1859 until the progress of the war suspended the institution, he was a joint- 
principal of the Carolina High School in Columbia. 

In connection with Greek he studied Romaic. He reads French ; and has some knowledge 
of Spanish and Italian. 

During a portion of the war he was an officer in the Confederate Army under Lee in 
Virginia. 

Since the war, he has taught school in Columbia, mainly in the Columbia Male Academy, 
where he taught the Latin and Greek classics. 

Professor Davidson has published two books: A School History of South Carolina, a 
manual for schools, extending the history from the discovery of the State down to 1S6:>; 
The Living Writers of the South, 635 pages. He h;is in preparation A Dictionary of Southern 
Authors, to embrace both sexes, all races, and the living and dead; also a work illustrative 
of life in the Homeric times, entitled Helcne, [Helen of Troy,] something alter the manner 
of Becker's Charicles. He has written also for a large number of periodicals both North and 
South, principally the latter. He has twice appeared iis a lecturer before lyceums. 

Professor Davidson holds the idea of art that its utmost limit is Nature; and hence that 
creative art is false when it transcends that limit, even in symbolism. Hence Madonnas on 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 3C5 

moons aro absurd; and angels with wings, Wa^ihingtons in togas, and narratives of conver- 
sali )n on ocean-wrecks that resich no hind, — are all false art. 
He is at pi-eseut a resident of Washington, D. C. 

Mrs. Mary T. Tardy, , of Mobile, Ala., under the name of " Ida Raymond," has 

published a work, in two large volumes, entitled Southland Writers. It is limited to those 
of her own sex, and is very full and particular in its information, most of it from original 
sources. She gives also ample quotations. The work has been well received. She has 
written also Living Female Writers of the South. 



III. MAGAZINISTS. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, M. D., 1809 , like many others named 

in the present chapter, excels in several departments. He is by profession 
a medical lecturer, and ranks high as a writer on medical science, producing 
on one occa^sion three prize dissertations in two successive years. He has 
won great praise also as a poet. But his greatest and most enduring fame, 
undoubtedly, is that acquired as a writer of magazine articles. Were there 
a laureate for this line of art, as there is for poetry, Holmes beyond all 
question would wear the bays. No living magazinist, English or American, 
can equal him. His Autocrat at the Breakfast Table and its successors, are 
fully up to the Noctes Ambrosianae of Blackwood when Wilson was in his 
prime. 

Dr. Holmes, son of Abdiel Holmes, mentioned elsewhere in this volnme, was born and edu- 
cated at Cambridge, graduating in 1829. He studied medicine abroad nearly three years. In 
1838 he was elected Professor of Anatomy in Dartmouth College; in 1847, was appointed to 
the same chair in Harvard, as successor to Dr. Warren. 

Dr. Holmes's literary productions are so well known that the present notice of them need 
not be otherwise than very brief. His principal earlier poems are Poetry, Terpsichore, and 
Urania. Since these he ha-s published a number of short lyric pieces, either detached or 
embodied in his prose writings. As a prosaist, he has rendered himself famous by his Au- 
tocrat of the Breakf;i8t Table, his Professor at the Breakfast Table, Elsie Venner, and The 
Guardian Angel. 

In both his prose and his verse, he e.Khibits a strange blending of the humorous, witty, 
and sentimental, an accurate, although scarcely a profound, knowledge of character, a per- 
fect command of words, and a most genial vigor of expression. No other .\mcrican writer, 
perhaps, has so cheered and stimulated his public. His Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, in 
the pages of the Atlantic, came like the dawning of a new era, and contributed more than 
any one other cause to the success of that periodical. Among Holme.>?'s j)oems it is almost 
impossible to make a choice — they are so much alike, and so eiiually good. 

"The 'Autocrat' is as genial and gentle, and withal, as philosophical an essayist as any 
of modern times. Hazlitt, saturnine and cynical, would yet have loved this writer. Charles 
Lamb would have opened his heart to one who resembles him so much in many excellent 
points. Leigh Hunt, we dare say, has been much delighted with him. Thomas Hood, the 
great humanitarian, would have relished his fine catholic spirit. Dickens, no doubt, has 
read him more than once, admiring his command of our common language, — the ' well of 
English undofiled,' — and, aliove all, the pervading tone of practical philosophy. The 'Auto- 



396 AMERICAN LITEBATUEE. 

crat,' however, is somewhat more than an essayist ; he is contemplative, discursive, poetical, 
thoughtful, philosophical, amusing, imaginative, tender, — never didactic. This is the secret 
of his marked success ; he interests variously constituted minds and various moods of minds. 
It needed not the introduction of lyrical pieces (which we are glad to have) to show that the 
' Autocrat ' is essentially a poet. Of all who would have most enjoyed him, we maj' foremost 
name Professor Wilson, who would have welcomed him to a seat ' above the salt' at the far- 
famed ' Noctes Ambrosianae,' placing him next to William Maginn, the wayward ' O'Do- 
herty ' of Blackwood's Magazine." — R. Shelton Macltenzie. 

"As he is everybody's favorite, there is no occasion for critics to meddle with him, either 
to censure or to praise. He can afford to laugh at the whole reviewing fraternity. His wit 
is all his own, so sly and tingling, but without a drop of ill-nature in it, and never leaving 
a sting behind. His humor is so grotesque and queer, that it reminds one of the frolics of 
Puck ; and deep pathos mingles with it so naturally, that, when the reader's eyes are brim- 
ming with tears, he knows not whether they have their source in sorrow or in laughter." — 
Francis Bowen, in North American Review. 

" If any of your readers (and at times we fear it is the case with all) need amusement, and 
the wholesome alternative of a hearty laugh, we commend them not to Dr. Holmes the phy- 
sician, but to Dr. Holmes the scholar, the wit, and the humorist; not to the scientific medi- 
cal professor's barbarous Latin, but to his practical prescriptions given in choice old Saxon. 

We have tried them, and are ready to give the doctor certificates of their efiicfcicy 

Long may he live, to make broader the face of our care- ridden generation, and to realize for 
himself the truth of the wise man's declaration that a merry heart is ' a continual feast.' "— • 
JoTin G, WhiUien 

BILL AND JOE. 

Come, dear old comrade, yon and I 
Will steal an hour from days gone by— 
The shining days when life was new, 
And all was bright as morning dew. 
The lusty days of long ago. 
When you were Bill and I was Joe. 

Tour name may flaunt a titled trail. 
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail ; 
And mine as brief appendix wear 
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare; 
To-day, old friend, remember still 
That I am Joe and you are Bill. 

You've won the great world's envied prize, 

And grand you look in people's eyes, 

With H N., and L L. D., 

In big brave letters, fair to see — 

Your fist, old fellow! Off they go! 

How are you. Bill? How are you, Joe? 

You've worn the judge's ermine robe; 
You've taught your name to half the globe; 
You've sung mankind a deathless strain; 
You've made the dead past live again: 
The world may call you what it will. 
But you and I are Joe and Bill. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 397 

The chaffing j'oung folks stare and say, 
"See those old buffers, bent and gray; 
They talk like fellows in their teens; 
Mad, poor old boys! That's what it means" — 
And shake their heads; they little know 
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe — 

How Bill forgets his hour of pride. 
While Joe sits smiling at his side; 
How Joe, in spite of time's disguise, 
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes — 
Those calm, stem eyes that melt and fill, 
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill. 

Ah! pensive scholar, what is fame? 

A fitful tongue of leaping flame; 

A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, 

That lifts a pinch of mortal dust: 

A few swift years, and who can show 

Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe, 

The weary idol takes his stand. 

Holds out his bruised and aching band, 

While gaping thousands come and go — 

How vain it seems, this empty show! — 

Till all at once his pulses thrill: 

'Tis poor old Joe's "God bless you. Bill!" 

And shall we breathe in happier spheres 
The names that pleased our mortal ears. 
In some sweet lull of harp and song. 
For earth-born spirits none too long. 
Just whispering of the world below. 
Where this was Bill, and that was Joe? 

No matter; while our home is here. 
No sounding name is half so dear; 
When fades at length our lingering day. 
Who cares what pompous tombstones say? 
Read on the hearts that love us still. 
Hie jacet Joe. Hie jacet Bill. 



James Parton 

jA»rES Parton, 1822 , is a magazinist of the first order, although 

he has not the exuberant wit and fancy which in conjunction with the 
more solid qualities make Holmes supreme. Mr. Parton is, perhaps, the 
only American author who has made magazine-writing a profession. He 
has pursued it for a long series of years with continued and undivided 
devotion, and his success has been commensurate with his zeal. 

Mr. Parton, though a native of England, came to the United States when only four years 
34 



398 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

old, and he has spent nearly his whole life in New York city. He has devoted himself to 
the profession of letters, writing chiefly for the Monthly Magazines. 

No magazinist of the day writes more readable articles. His judgment, however, is not 
always equal to his faculty of making a subject interesting, so that his opinions are received 
with some distrust, though he is always sure of an audience. He has a vigorous imagina- 
tion, apprehends with wonderful clearness what he wants to say, and says it in such a way 
that it is diflicult not to take his meaning; and withal he has an instinctive sagacity for 
knowing what points in any given subject are likely to interest the general reader. He 
usually writes long articles, yet he is never dull ; he makes even statistics entertaining. 

Mr. Parton's separate volumes are mostly biogi'aphies, while his magazine articles are 
usually special studies of the current topics of the day. He has published extended Biog- 
raphies of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, John Jacob 
Astor, and Thomas Jefferson ; Famous Americans of Recent Times, containing sketches of 
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Randolph, Girard, Vanderbilt, James Gordon Bennett, Goodyear, 
Beecher, etc.; People's Book of Biography, or Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons 
of All Ages and Couutries. Some of his other publications are, Smoking and Drinking; 
Triumphs of Enterprise, Ingenuity, and Public Spirit; General Butler in New Orleans; How 
New York City is Governed ; Manual for the Instruction of " Rings," Railroad and Political ; 
The Humorous Poetry of the English Language from Chaucer to Saxe. 

Mrs. Parton, ~ " Fanny Fern." 

Mrs. Sarah Payson (Willis) Parton, 1811 , under the name of 

"Fanny Fern," acquired, and has for a long series of years maintained, a 
reputation almost unique as a writer of short, spicy articles on topics of the 
day. Her contributions are limited to the New York Ledger. 

Mrs. Parton is a native of Portland, Maine, and a sister of the late N. P. Willis. She was 
married in 1834 to Mr. Charles H. Eldredge, of Boston. On his death, in 1846, she was sud- 
denly reduced from a life of affluence to the necessity of labor for the support of herself and 
a family of young children. In this emergency, she betook herself to her pen, and began 
writing for the public journals, under the assumed name of Fanny Fern. She had at first 
the usual bitter experiences of the novitiate in the life of avithorship, having to run the 
gauntlet not only of indifference and neglect, but of impertinence, superciliousness, and idle 
curiosity, receiving often the merest pittance for brain-work which had cost an agony of 
labor, yet receiving it thankfully, because the wolf was at the door. 

She bravely persevered against all discouragements, learning her trade while practising 
it, and gradually fighting her way into public favor. 

The first distinct recognition of her extraordinary merit came from Mr. Bonner, of the 
New York Ledger, who boldly engaged her to write a story for that paper at the extraordi- 
nary price of a hundred dollars a column, and was so well pleased with his bargain that he 
contracted with her to write for him, on the same terms, a weekly article, which she has 
now continued to do for eighteen years, without ever missing for a single week. 

These sprightly essays have been worked up, from time to time, into volumes with fancy 
names, and have had a large sale in this separate form, besides the enormous circulation 
which they have had in the Ledger. The names of these books are Fern Leaves, First and 
Second Series; Fresh Leaves; Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends; The Play Book; 
Folly as it Flies ; and Ginger Snaps. 

About the time of her engagement with Mr. Bonner, she published, in quick succession, 
two novels, Ruth Hall, and Rosa Clark, which made a great sensation, and sold largely. It 
was thought at that time that she would become a regular novelist. But the short, pithy 
essay is evidently her forte, and she has wisely adhered to it. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 399 

THE FASHIOi^ABLE PRBACIIER. 

Do you call this a church? Well, I hoard a prima-douna here a few nights ago: and 
bright eyes sparkled, and waving ringlets kept time to moving fand; and opera-glasses and 
ogling, and fashion and folly reigned for the nonce triumphant. I can't forget it; I can't 
get up any devotion fiere, under these latticed balconies, with their fashionable freight. If 
it were a good old country church, with a cracked bell and unhewn rafters, a pine pulpit, 
with the honest sun staring in through the windows, a pitch-pipe in the gallery, and a few 
hob-nailed rustics scattered round in the uncushioned seats, I should feel all right; but my 
soul is in fetters here; it won't soar — its wings are earth-clipped. Things are all too fine! 
Nobody can come in at that door, whose hat and coat and bonnet are not fashionably cut. 
The poor man (minus a Sunday suit) might lean on his staff, in the porch, a long while, 
before he 'd dare venture in, to pick up Ins crumb of the Bread of Life. But, thank God, the 
unspoken prayer of penitence may wing its way to the Eternal Throne, though our mocking 
church-spires point onlj' with aristocratic fingers to the rich man's heaven. 

— That hymn was beautifully read ; there's poetry in the preachers soul. Now he takes 
his seat by the reading-desk; now he crosses the platform, and offers his hymn-book to a 
female who has just entered. What right has he to know there is a woman in the house? 
'Tis n't clerical ! Let the bonnets find their own hymns. 

Well, I take a listening attitude, and try to believe I am in church. I hear a great many 
original, a great many startling things said. I see the gauntlet thrown at the dear old 
orthodox sentiments which I nursed in with nij' mother's milk, and which (please God) I'll 
cling to till I die. I see the polished blade of satire glittering in the air, followed by curious, 
eager, youthful eyes, which gladly see the searching " sword of the Spirit" parried. Meaning 
glances, smothered smiles, approving nods follow the witty clerical sally. The orator pauses 
to mark the effect, and his face says. That stroke tells! and so it did, for " the Athenians" 
are not all dead, who " love to see and hear some new thing," But he has another arrow in 
his quiver. Now his features soften — his voice is low and thrilling, his imagery beautiful 
and touching. He speaks of human love ; he touches .skilfully a chord to which every heart 
vibrates; and stern manhood is struggling with his tears, ere his smiles are chasetl awaj'. 

Oh, there 's intellect there — there "s poetry there — there 's genius there ; but 1 remember 
Gethseniane — I forget not Calvary! I know the "rocks were rent," and "the heavens 
darkened," and " the stone rolled away ; " and a cold chill strikes to my heart when I hear 
"Jesus of Nazareth " lightly mentioned. 

Oh, what are intellect, and poetry, and genius, when with Jewish voice they cry, "Away 
wiVt Him ! " 

With " Mary," let me "bathe his feet with my tears, and wipe them with the hairs of my 
head." 

And so, I "went away sorrowful," that this human preacher, with such great intellectual 
possessions, should yet "lack the one thing needfuV 

THE BABY'S COMPLAINT. 
Now, I suppose you think, because you never see me do anything but feed and sleep, that I 
have a verj' fine time of it. Let me tell you that you are mistaken, and that I am tormented 
hair to death, although I never say anything about it. How should you like every morn- 
ing to have your no.se washed »/;>, instead of downf How should you like to have a pin put 
through your dress into your skin, and have to l)ear it all day till your clothes were taken 
off at ni_ht? How (should you Jike to be held so ne:ir the fire that yonr eyes were half 
scorched out of your head, while your nurse was reading a novel? How should you like to 
have a great Hy light on your nose, and not know how to take aim at him, with your little, 
fat. useless fingers ? How should you like to be left alone in the room to take a nap. and have 
a great pussy jtimp into your cradle, and sit staring at you with her great green eyes, till 
you were all of a tremble ? How should you like to reach out your hand for the pretty bright 



400 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

candle, and find out that it was awaj' across the room, instead of close by? How should 
you like to tire yourself out crawling way across the carpet, to pick up a pretty button or 
pin, and haye it snatched away as soon as you begin to enjoy it? I tell you it is enough to 
ruin any baby's temper. How should you like to have your mamma stay at a party till you 
were as hungry as a little cub, and be left to the mercy of nurse, who trotted you up and 
down till every bone in your body ached ? How should you like, when your mamma dressed 
you up all pretty to take the nice, fresh air, to spend the afternoon with your nurse in some 
smoky kitchen, while she gossiped with one of her cronies? How should you like to 
submit to have your toes tickled by all the little children who insisted upon "seeing the 
baby's feet"? How should you like to have a dreadful pain under your apron, and have 
everybody call you "a little cross thing," when you couldn't speak to tell what was the 
matter with you ? How should you like to crawl to the top stair (just to look pbout a little), 
and pitch heels over head from the top to the bottom? 

Oh, I can tell you it is no joke to be a baby ! Such a thinking as we keep up ; and if we 
try to find out anything, we are sure to get our brains knocked out in the attempt. It is 
very trying to a sensible baby, who is in a hurry to know everything, and can't wait to 
grow up. 

Mary Abigail Dodge, — '' Gail Hamilton.'* 

Mary AsiGAiii Dodge, 1838 , known as " Gail Hamilton," is one 

of the most brilliant contributors to current literature. Her contributions 
usually appear first in the weekly or monthly magazines, and afterwards 
are collected into volumes. 

Miss Dodge "was born at Hamilton, Mass., about 1838. Her father was a farmer. She 
taught school in Hartford, Conn., and was afterwards governess in the family of Dr. Gamaliel 
Bailey, of Washington, D. C, to whose paper (National Era) she was a contributor."— J>ra/.e's 
Diet. ofAmer. Biography. Miss Dodge's assumed name is said to be made up of " Hamilton," 
the place of her residence, and "-gail," the last syllable of her middle name. The magazines 
to which chiefly she has contributed are the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Bazar. Her 
books are the following: A New Atmosphere, or the Whole Duty of Man ; Gala Days ; Coun- 
try Living ; Woman's Wrongs ; Skirmishes and Sketches; Red Letter Days; Wool Gather- 
ing ; Summer Rest ; Stumbling-Blocks ; Battle of the Books ; Woman's Worth and Worth- 
lessness. 

George W. Curtis. 

George William Curtis, 1824 , is known all over the land, and 

for that matter pretty much all over the world, or at least wherever the 
English language is spoken, by his writings in the three great magazines 
published by the Harpers. He is the political editor of the Weekly, fills 
the Easy Chair of the Monthly, and writes Manners upon the Koad for the 
Bazar. His writings in these periodicals, as any one may see by a glance 
at the annual table of contents, would fill at least a score of volumes. 

Mr. Curtis was bom in Providence, R. I., and was educated chiefly at Jamaica Plains, Mass. 
At the ag« of fifteen he entered a counting-house in New York. In 1842, he joined the 
famous Brook Farm Association, West Roxbury, Mass., where he remained eighteen mouths, 
and afterwards was engaged for an equal time on a kindred enterprise at Concord, in con- 
nection with Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1816 he went to Europe, 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 401 

and after a year spent in Italy, entered the University of Berlin, and witnessed the revolu- 
tionary scenes there in 1S48. The two following years were spent in travel, chiefly in Syria 
and Egypt. In 1850 he returned to America, and joined the editorial staff of the New York 
Tribune. He was one of the original t-ditors of Putnam, and sunk his entire private fortune 
in trying to save its creditors from loss by the failure of the publishers. In 1853 he began 
as a lyceum lecturer, in which kind of labor his success has been marked and uniform. In 
1856 he enlisted with great zeal as a public speaker in advocacy of the Republican party. 
In 1858 he advocated in many places the rights of women, in a lecture entitled Fair Play for 
"NA'omen. He has delivered for several years a course of lectures on English Literature at 
Cornell University. 

Mr. Curtis's separate publications have been the following : Nile Notes of a Howadji; The 
Ilowadji in Syria; Lotus-Eating; The Potiphar Papers; Prueandl; Trumps. He edited 
also Downing's Rural Essays with a Biography, and has published several public addresses. 



W. D. Howells. 

WiT.T.TAM Deaite Howells, 1837 y editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 

like a good many others of the qraft, began his career as a practical printer, 
and has worked his way up to his present distinguished position by dint of 
labor and brains. 

Mr. Howells was born at Martin's Ferry, 0., of "Welsh parentage on the father's side, and 
of Pennsylvania-German on the side of the mother. "Without the advantages of early leisure 
or of liberal education, he yet managed, by reading and study out of work-hours, to educate 
himself, and at a comparatively early age, has won for himself a distinguished place in the 
field of letters. 

Mr. Howells learned the printing business in his father's offices at Hamilton and Dayton, 
0., and worked pretty steadily "at case " from his twelfth to his nineteenth year. He then 
became Legislative correspondent of the Cincinnati Givzette from Columbus, and two years 
later news editor of the Ohio State Journal. He began to contribute to the Atlantic Monthly 
in 1860. In 1861. he Wi\s appointed United States consul at Venice, where he remained 
until July, 1865, when he resigned the position and returned to the United States. After 
an eugagement of a few months upon The Nation, New York, he received from Mr. Fields, 
March, 1866, an invitation to be assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and on the 1st of 
July, 1871, he became editor-in-chief of that important magazine. He resides at Cambridge. 

Mr. Howells's publications thus far are the following: Poems of Two Friends (W. D. 
Howells and J. J. Piatt); No Ix)ve Lost, a Romance of Travel, in hexameter verse ; Life of 
Abraham Lincoln ; "Venetian Life; Italian Journeys; and Suburban Sketches. 

" Mr. Howells's new volume (Suburban Sketches) will confirm and extend the fame he had 
already acquired by the singular delicacy of his genius, and the respect which he shows for 
it in the fastidious purity of his style. It is wonderfully easy reading, because it is graded 
with such consummate skill. But there is profound feeling here, and humor so subtle, so 
evanescent, that it suggests itself by indications, as it were, and dominates all our associa- 
tions like a faint perfume that is and is not. and yet possesses us wholly with its indefinable 
charm." — J. R. Lmcell, in the N. Am. Review. 

"If there are difl[icultie3, and few will deny that they are almost insurmountable, in writ- 
ing a book about Venice, it must be confessed that Mr. Howells deserves all the reputation 
which can flow from overcoming them, llis book does not revel in new descriptions of 
thrice-describe<l palaces, and is not inordinately stnfl"ed out with half-tli};ested scraps of 
Venetian history. The picturesque streets, the balmy and caressing atmosphere are con- 
stantly felt, and afl°ord an ever-present local tone to all be writes of a place be had lived in 
34* 2 A 



402 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

long enough to love with the love of knowledge. And not the place only, but the people as 
they live at the present day. Indeed, it is the people, and Venetian society that offered 
themselves to him as the supremely interesting things. This point of view is one which is 
ever present in the minds of intelligent Americans, and gives to their marks a freshness 
and apparent origiaahty, which we seldom find except in the very highest class of European 
travellers." — Wtstminster Review. 

" There is in it [Suburban Sketches] such refinement of thought, such depth and subtilty 
of humor, and such graceful elegance and artistic beauty of style, as makes us recognize 
with grateful pleasure that we have in America, to use the words of another, a prose writer 
.' worthy to be ranked with Hawthorne in sensitiveness of observation, and with Longfellow 
in perfection of style.' " — The Catliolic World. 



Col. T. W. Higginson. 

CoLONiTL Thomas Wbntworth Higkjinson, 1823 , has been a 

favorite contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. His volumes, Out-Door 
Papers, Malbone an Oldport Romance, and others, made up of magazine 
articles, are held in high esteem. 

Colonel Higginson was born and educated in Cambridge, Mass., where his father was stew- 
ard of the University. He is descended from a long line of colonial ministers, writers, magis- 
trates, and Indian fightersj so that he comes honestly by the writing and fighting propensi- 
ties which have been so strongly developed in his career. It is worthy of note, in the same 
connection, that he is own cousin to Dr. Stephen H. Tyng and to Rev. W. H. Channing, 
Chaplain of United States House of Representatives during the late war. 

Colonel Higginson was graduated in 1841, ranking second in a class of forty-five. After 
teaching for some years, and studying theology in the Divinity School of Cambridge, he was 
ordained, in 1847, minister of the First Religious Society at NewburjT)ort, Mass. His anti- 
slavery opinions, which were very pronounced, not being acceptable to the people there, he 
went in 1852 to the Free Church at Worcester, and in 1858 he retired from the ministry 
altogether, for the purpose of devoting himself to literary pursuits. Since that time, he has 
followed literature as a profession, with the exception only of some interruptions caused by 
the war. 

Colonel Higginson took an active part in the late war, the principal field of his operations 
being in South Carolina and Florida. He was for two years in command of a regiment there, 
and in one of his expeditions he was seriously wounded, and obliged in consequence to 
resign. 

Colonel Higginson was married, in 1847, to Mary E. Channing, daughter of Walter Chan- 
ning, M. D., of Boston. He lives at Newport, R. I. 

The following are his principal publications : Out-Door Papers ; Malbone, an Oldport 
Romance, reprinted in London; Army Life in a Black Regiment; Atlantic Essays. He has 
edited the following : Thalatta, a Book of Poetry for the Sea-Side, edited in connection with 
Samuel Longfellow ; The Works of Epictetus, a new translation, based on that of Elizabeth 
Carter ; Harvard Memorial Biographies, 2 vols., 8vo. He has also written a large number 
of pamphlets and magazine articles, the latter being chiefly for the Atlantic Monthly. He 
wrote the articles on Margaret Fuller Ossoli, and Lydia Maria Child, for "The Eminent 
Women of the Age " ; and the Memoir of Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, which is prefaced 
to his Entomological Correspondence. 

For Redpath's Life of John Brown he furnished a Sketch of a visit to the family of Captain 
Brown just before his execution, which is pronounced by R. H. Dana, .Jr., "an unsurpassed 
narrative." His latest publication is an Essay on " The Sympathy of Religions," marked by 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 403 

mnch research, of which Rev. Dr. Dewey says, " In the style, and in the study of the subject 
which it shows, it is admirable enough to make a reputation." 

John G. Saxe wrote of Malbone: " As a romance, it seems to us the most brilliant that has 
appeared in this country since Hawthorne (whom the author in some points has the happi- 
ness to resemble) laid down the most fascinating pen ever held by an American author." 



J. T. Tro^A^bridge. 

John" Towxsend Trowbridge, 1827 , a favorite contributor to the 

Atlantic Monthly and the Young Folks, and at present editor of the latter 
magazine, is known also as the author of the popular poem called The 
Vagabonds, and of numerous popular tales and novels. 

John Townsend Trowbridge, 1827 , is a native of the town of Ogden, in Western New 

York. At the time of his birth, the country around was a wilderness, and he liad the usual 
sharp experiences of pioneer life. After roughing it for a few years, and vainly trying to 
make a farmer of himself, the plough and he formally dissolved partnership ; and, with only 
the limited advantages of early education to be had from a country school, he plunged at 
once fearlessly into a life of authorship. At the age of nineteen he went to New York, and 
began to write for anybody that would buy his wares, and for any price that he could get, — 
a dollar a page being considered liberal. After struggling for a few years in this way, often 
reduced to his last loaf, which he carried under his arm up four flights of stairs and ate 
bravely id the solitude of his chamber, and part of the time eking out his scanty means by 
engraving pencil-cases for a manufacturer in Jersey city, the young author at length pushed 
his way to Boston, as a more promising market for such things as he had to sell. The very 
hardships that he had encountered gave him faith and muscle, and he began after a while to 
find himself in demand. His first efforts in Boston were a series of tales under the signa- 
ture of Paul Creyton. His first book was Father Brighthopes. It was a decided success, and 
led to others of a like character. Martin Merivale, His X Mark, appeared in 1854, but with 
only a limited success. In 1855, he went to Europe and spent a year abroad, mostly in 
France and Italy. While there, he wrote Neighbor Jackwood, a powerful work of fiction, in 
which the common phases of country life are faithfully portrayed. The story was drama- 
tized by the author, and brought out in Boston, New York, and elsewhere. Cudjoe's Cave, 
a novel of the war, came out in 1S63, and had a large sale. 

Mr. Trowbridge was one of the original contributors to the Atlantic Monthly, and a large 
part of his works have appeared first in that magazine. He has also been connected with 
The Young Folks from the start, and latterly he has been its managing editor. 

The Vagabonds, his most striking and original poem, first appeared in the Atlantic, in 
18«j3. No American poem, of the same size, has made a more profound impression, or has 
been more frequently read or recited in public exhibitions of every kind. 

The following list embraces most of his publications: The Brighthope Series, (viz., Father 
Brighthopes, Hearts and Faces, Burcliff, Iron Thorpe the Pioneer Preacher, The Old Battle- 
ground); Martin Merivale, His >< Mark ; Neighbor Jackwood ; The Drummer Boy ; Cudjoe's 
Cave; The Three Scouts; Lucy Arlyn; Neighbors" Wives ; Lawrence's Adventures among 
the Ice-Cutters, etc. ; Coupon Bonds ; The South. A Tour of its Battlefields ; The Vagabonds, 
and other Poems. 

Mr. Trowbridge lives at Arlington, seven miles from Boston. 

"If there is any one who understands so thoroughly New England life and character, and 
describes it so accurately and with so much sympathy and humor as the author of Neighbor 
Jackwood, we are not acquainted with him. Mr. Trowbridge ha.s qualifications as a tale- 
writer which render all his productions reputable and even exceptional ; but he is strongest 



404 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

when he keeps the Connecticut River, the Green Mountains, and Massachusetts Bay in sight. 
In Cudjoe's Cave he sliowed very clearly that he had strayed from liis native soil. For if he 
is master in his way, that way is not of tlie broadest. He cannot, like Gerome, paint you an 
Arab, Turk, Egyptian, Russian ; he cannot call the past before you — the Roman amphi- 
theatre, the Areopagus, augurs, players, philosophers ; but he will give you the youth of 
to-day with absolute fidelity, and no historical painting can be better — it ranks witL the 
Bigelow Papers, and the domestic poems of Whittier." — The Nation. 

THE VAGABONDS. 

We are two travellers, Roger and I. 

Roger's my dog. — Come here, you scamp. 
Jump for the gentlemen, — mind your eye ! 

Over the table, — look out for the lamp ! — 
The rogue is growing a little old : 

Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, 
And slept out doors when nights were cold, 

And ate and drank — and starved — together. 

We 've learned what comfort is, I tell you ! 

A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin. 
A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow, 

The paw he holds up there has been frozen,) 
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, 

(This out-door business is bad for strings,) 
Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddio, 

And Roger and I set up for kings ! 

No, thank you. Sir, — I never drink : 

Roger and I are exceedingly moral, ^ — 
Aren't we, Roger? — see him wink! — 

Well, something hot, then, we won't quarrel. 
He's thirsty, too — see him nod his head! 

What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk — 
He understands every word that's said, — 

And he knows good milk from water and chalk. 

The truth is, Sir, now I reflect, 

I've been so sadly given to grog, 
I wonder I 've not lost the respect 

(Here 's to you. Sir !) even of my dog. 
But he sticks by, through thick and thin ; 

And this old coat, with its empty pockets, 
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin. 

He '11 follow while he has eyes in his sockets. 

There isn't another creature living 

Would do it, and prove, through every disaster, 
So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving, 

To such a miserable thankless master! 
No, Sir ! — see him wag his tail and grin! 

By George ! it makes my old eyes water ! 
That is, there 's something in this gin 

That chokes a fellow. But no matter! 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 405 

We'll have some music, if you are willing, 

And Roger (hem ! what a plague a cough is, Sir !) 
Shall march a little. — Start, you villain! 

Stand straight! 'Bout face! Salute your oflScer I 
Put up that paw ! Dress ! Take your rifle ! 

(Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold 
Your cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, 

To aid a poor old patriot soldier. 

March! Ilalt! Now show how the rebel shakes, 

When he stands up to hear his sentence. 
Now tell how many drams it takes 

To honor a jolly new acquaintance. 
Five yelps, that's five; he's mighty knowing! 

The night's before us, fill the glasses I 
Quick, Sir! I'm ill, — my brain is going; 

Some brandy, — thank you ; there, — it passes ! 

Why not reform ? That 's easily said ; 

But I've gone through such wretched treatment, 
Sometimes forgetting the tiiste of bread, 

And scarce remembering what meat meant, 
That my poor stomach 's past reform ; 

And there are times when, mad with thinking, 
I 'd sell out Heaven for something warm 

To prop a horrible inward sinking. 

Is there a way to forget to think? 

At your age, Sir, home, fortune, friends, 
A dear girl's love, — but I took to drink; — 

The same old story ; you know how it ends. 
If you could have seen these classic features, — 

You needn't laugh. Sir; they were not then 
Such a burning libel on God's creatures; 

I was one of your handsome men ! 

If you had seen her, so fair, so young, 

Whose head was happy on this breast I 
If you could have heard the songs I sung 

When the wine went round, you would n't have guessed 
That ever I, Sir, should be straying 

From door to door, with fiddle and dog, 
Ragged and penniless, and playing 

To you to-night for a glass of grog. 

She's married since, a parson's wife ; 

'Twas better for her that wo should part; 
Better the soberest prosiest life 

Than a blasted home and broken heart. 
I have seen her? Once: I was weak and spent 

On the dusty road ; a carriage stopped ; 
But little she dreamed, as on she went. 

Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped? 



406 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

You 've set me talking, Sir ; I 'm sorry ; 

It makes me wild to tbink of the change! 
"What do you care for a beggar's story? 

Is it amusing ? You find it strange ? 
I bad 0, mother so proud of me ! 

'Twas well she died before. Do you know 
If the spirits in heaven can see 

The ruin and wretchedness here below? 

Another glass, and strong, to deaden 

This pain ; then Roger and I will start. 
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden, 

Aching thing, in place of a heart ? 
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if be could. 

No doubt, remembering things as they were, — 
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food, 

And himself a sober respectable cur. 

I'm better now; that glass was warming, — 

You rascal ! limber your lazy feet ! 
We must be fiddling and performing 

For supper and bed, or starve in the street.— 
Not a very gay life to lead, you think? 

But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, 
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink; — 

The sooner the better for Roger and me. 

John William Palmer, M.D., 1825 , is a native of Baltimore. He was City Physician 

of San Francisco in 1849, entered the East India Company's service as a surgeon in 1851, and 
continued in it for two or three years. In 1853 he returned to the United States, and em- 
barked in literary pursuits, contributing to Putnam, Harper, the Atlantic, the New York 
Tribune, and other periodicals. Among his best-known fugitive pieces are The California 
Sketches, in Putnam ; Forty-nine, a Chapter from the Real Romance of San Francisco, in 
Harper ; Sketches of E;ist India Life, in the Atlantic^ He has published also The Golden 
Dagon, or Up and Down the Irrawaddie. being passages of adventures in the Burman Empire 
of an American ; The New and the Old, or California and India in Romantic Aspects ; The 
Queen's Heart, a Comedy, played with success in Boston ; also several volumes of transla- 
tions and compilations 

Mrs. Henrietta (Lee) Palmer, 1834 , is a native of Baltimore. She was married, in 

1855, to J. W. Palmer, M.D. She has been a contributor to the New York Tribune; has 
translated The Lady Tartuffe, from Rachel ; and has published a volume of great merit, The 
Stratford Gallery, or The Shakspeare Sisterhood, containing forty-five ideal portraits. Mrs. 
Palmer's plan, in this, is "simply to present a woman's instinctive measurement of the 
heighth and breadth and depth of Shakespearian women." 



Gen. Hill. 

Gen. Daniel Harvey Hill, 1824 , a distinguished officer in the 

Confederate army during the war, has acquired almost equal distinction 
since the war as a magazinist. His magazine, The Land We Love, is said 
to be the most successful, as it is the ablest, monthly published in the South. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 407 

Gen. Hill is a native of South Carolina, and a graduate of West Point, of the class of 1842. 
He was distinguished for gallantry in the Mexican war; resigned from the army in 1849, 
and became Professor of Mathematics, first in Washington College, Lexington, Va., then in 
Davidson College, N. C, and then, in 1859, Principal of the Military Institute, Charlotte, 
N. C. He took an active part in the war, and was distinguished for his ability.. "In the 
army I knew Gen. Hill by reputation, as an austere man, eccentric, having no mercy upon 
skulkers and deadheads, a good fighter, and a ^v'riter of pointed endorsements and telling 
orders. He entered the army as a Colonel, and came out of it a Lieutenant-General. That 
fact gives a whole biography in itself." — J. Wood Davidson. 

Gen. Hill has published the following works: Essays from the Quarterly Review; Essays 
from the Southern Presbyterian Review; Algebra. His chief literary work, however, has 
been done in the magazine already mentioned, The Land We Love. 



IV. JOURNALISTS. 

James Gordon Bennett. 

Jamt:s Gordon Beknett, 1800-1872, the founder of the New York 
Herald, initiated a new era in journalism. He was followed, indeed, in clo.se 
succession by Mr. Greeley, and at a somewhat later interval by Mr. Ray- 
mond. But to Mr. Bennett clearly belongs the honor of making the first 
movement in this direction. After having embarked in the enterprise, he 
made it his one, undivided ambition, to achieve success as a journalist, and 
he realized, in this respect, the full extent of his ambition. 

Mr. Bennett was born at Keith, in Scotland, of Catholic parents. He attended a Catholic 
seminary in Aberdeen, with a view of taking orders. But the ministry being distasteful to 
him, he left the seminary, and emigrated to America, landing at Halifax in 1819. 

His first effort to gain a living was by teaching. Failing in this he went to Boston, where 
for a time he was engaged as proof-reader in the printing-house of Wells & Lily. In 182i 
he went to New York, and manageil to make a living by writing items for various journals. 
In 1823 he went to Charleston, S. C, and was employed by the Charleston Courier in trans- 
lating articles from the Spanish American papers. In 1824 he returned to New York, and 
made an effort to open a school, but failed. In 1825 he bought the New York Courier, a 
Sunday paper, but not succeeding with it returned to his occupation of reporter. In 1826 
he became editor of the National Advocate, an anti-tariff paper. In 1827 he formed a con- 
nection with the New York Inquirer (changed soon after to the Courier and Inquirer) and 
went to Wiishiugton as its correspondent. In that position he gained considerable celebrity 
by the ability displayed in his articles. In 1832 he started another paper on his own account, 
the New York Globe, but failed. The same year he became editor and part proprietor of 
The Penusylvanian, and continued in this position until 1834. Ho then returned to New 
York and determined to found a paper of his own, for which his varied experience of the 
preceding fifteen years had served as a special training. 

In 1835, Mr. Bennett, with $500 in his pocket, rented a small cellar in Wall Street and 
began the Herald, his desk and counter being a plank supported on two old barrels. At the 
end of six months, even these humble arrangements were destroyed by fire. But he forth- 
with rented another cellar, and with characteristic enterprise brought out his paper the 
following morning without interruption. 

From that day to this the Herald haa steadily grown in power and influence. 

The features which distinguish the great journals of to-Uay from those of u former genera- 



408 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

tion are mainly the following : 1. Independence of party dictation in its editorials ; 2. Making 
the acquisition of the latest news at any cost the first and leading aim ; 3. Free discussion 
of finance and of stock-jobbing, or what is known as the " Money Article " ; 4. Foreign cor- 
respondence, by persons living at the great European centres ; 5. Army correspondence, in 
time of war, gathering and publishing at the earliest possible moment the actual occurrences 
of the battle-field; 6. Interviewing, or obtaining at first hand, from the lips of the actors 
themselves, accounts of great social and political movements. In each of these radical 
changes, now become almost universal, Mr. Bennett took the initiative. 

Mr. Bennett devoted himself to the work of building up a great paper with a singleness 
of purpose that has no parallel in the annals of journalism, and bis success was commensu- 
rate with his devotion. 

" Mr. Bennett will be judged in future not by what he was, hut by what he pccomplisbed. 
The passions, the hates, the controversies of the past, will all fade away from memory in 
another generation. But The Herald will remain the permanent and visible proof of what 
there was in the heart and the intellect of its founder, 

"Viewing his life from this point of view, it was completely successful. He bad no other 
aim than to make a great and lucrative newspaper. In bis days of poverty and privation, 
he boasted with gay defiance that, in spite of all the malice of his enemies, be would one day 
make the Herald produce $30,0(X) annually. He probably thought this prophecy exagger- 
ated, but be lived to see it dwindled into absurdity, by its tenfold accomplishment. He 
attained this great result by no trick, no luck, no accident. There was never seen a more 
logical and necessary issue of a given course of action. He was a man of extraordinary 
capacity. He has written so little of late years that elderly people have forgotten and young 
people never have known that no journalist in the country excelled him in the power of 
commenting upon current events in the way most acceptable to a large majority of readers. 
He had a good temper and a geniality which were purely professional, having no relation 
whatever to his toilsome and sombre life. At a time when drunkenness was the rule among 
people of bis craft, he was as frugal and abstemious as an Arab. An iron constitution ena- 
bled him to do the work of three ordinary men, witboiit either fever or fatigue. To these 
qualifications was added a gift which is common enough now, but which at the time when 
he began his career was so rare that it partook of the exceptional quality of genius. He un- 
derstood the value of news. He may almost be said to be the inventor of journalism in its 
latest and highest development as a means of disseminating all accessible contemporaneous 
intelligence. He was the first journalist who went to meet the news half-way. This was 
the sole secret of his success. All the sensations, scandals, and fierce wrauglings of his ear- 
lier years did very little to advance or retard the march of his great newspaper. When be 
began that long and desperate battle with a hostile fate in the dark Wall Street cellar, the 
victory was assured to him beforehand by bis inexhaustible energy and his infallible jour- 
nalistic instinct. 

" By adhering to certain true principles of journalism, he made the greatest material, that 
is to say, pecuniary success, in that profession which the world h:\s yet seen. This is per- 
haps as much in the way of example as the world has any right to expect from any one 
man. Beyond this, it certainly receives nothing more than warning from the founder of 
The Herald. He attempted no more than the establishment of a newspaper. Othei-s have 
followed him in the same path with equal success, and now the only journalism which lopks 
to the future for a constantly widening sphere of power and influence is that which aims not 
only to gather and edit each day the whole world's history for the preceding day. but, so f\vr 
as possible, in addition, to lead and train the honest, thought of the world. This is an im- 
mense plan, impossible to be accomplished perfectly by the present resources of any journal. 
Even to approach its fulfilment will require all the energy, all the sagacity, all the varied 
ability, all the personal probity of the great journalist who died on Saturday, together with 
a public conscience, a personal earnestness, a freedom from private ends, and a respect for 
the dignity of human nature, which he considered outside of the sphere of journalism." — 
New York Tribune. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 409 



Horace Greeley. 

Horace Greeley, 1811 , divides with Mr. Bennett the credit of 

initiating the new type of journalism which was introduced in the last gen- 
eration. Mr. Greeley has had other ambitions. But the main work of his 
life thus far has been the founding of the New York Tribune. 

Mr. Greeley was born at Amherst, N. H., the son of a farmer. lie learned the art of 
printing, and worked at it about four years. After trying several other places, he finally 
went to New York in 1831, and not long after rose from the occupation of a tj'pe-setter to 
that of a journalist. He was engaged in various editorial enterprises, but with no marked 
success until 1S40, when he published The Log Cjibin, a campaign paper supporting Ilarri- 
8on for the Presidency, which attained a circulation of 80,000, and " gave him an immense 
reputation in all parts of the country as an able writer and a zealous politician," {Parton.) 

In the following year, 1841,. being then just thirty years of age, he began The New York 
Tribune, and since that time his fame and fortunes have been indissolubly connected with 
that journal. Not only has he "grown with its growth and strengthened with its strength," 
but he has for a period of thirty years stamped upon it in boldest lines the features of his 
own character. There may be other journals equally able, but there is none, in either hem- 
isphere, that has so much individuality ; none of which, in any given circumstances, we can 
predict its course, just as we would those of a living man of known character and ante- 
cedents. 

Besides his work as a journalist, or rather in connection with it, and as its legitimate 
offshoots, Mr. Greeley has published several valuable works, and has done much as a popu- 
lar lecturer. The following is a list of his principal separate publications : Hints towards 
Reforms; Glances at Europe; Art and Industry, as represented in the Exhibition of the 
Crystal Palace; Association Discussed ; What I Know of Farming; History of the Struggle 
for Slavery Extension ; The American Conflict ; Recollections of a Busy Life, etc. 

In 1848-9, Mr. Greeley was a member of the House of Representatives at Washington. In 
1872, he was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. 



Henry J. Raymond. 

Henry Jarvis Kaymokd, LL. D., 1820-1869, acquired great and de- 
served celebrity as the founder and editor of the New York Times. Of all 
the conspicuous enterprises in that line which have marked the last thirty 
years, his paper was the only one which was successful from the beginning. 
He is also one of the small, though now growing, number of eminent jour- 
nalists who had a regular classical education. 

Mr. Raymond was bom in Lima, Western New York. He was fitted for college in the 
Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at that place, and was graduated at Burlington University, Vt., 
in the class of 1840. He could road at the age of three, and he began going to the District 
school when only three and a half years old ; and in all his schools, down to the time of his 
graduation, he gained distinction by his studious habits, his quickness at learning, and bis 
uniform correctness of deportment. 

His first impulse after graduating was to engage in teaching, but failing to find immediate 
employment, he went to New York with the view of trying his fortune there, aud offered his 
35 



410 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

services to Mr. Greeley, -who was then publishing a small weekly paper, The New Yorker. 
Mr. Greeley was poor, his paper was barely paying expenses, and there was no place for an 
additional assistant. All that yonng Raymond could at first obtain was permission to hang 
about the oflBce and make himself generally useful, while waiting for "something to turn 
np." The matter ended, however, in a few weeks in Mr. Greeley's engaging him at a salary 
of eight dollars a week, and this engagement decided Raymond's caieer. He became from 
that day a journalist by profession. 

"When Mr. Greeley, in the following year, 1841, began the publication of the Tribune, Mr. 
Raymond was his first assistant, and gave himself up to the work with great zeal. The con- 
nection continued about three years. Of this service Mr. Greeley says, in his Recollections 
of a Busy Life, "I never found another person, barely of age and just from his studies, who 
evinced so much and so versatile ability in journalism as he did. Abler and stronger men I 
may have met ; a cleverer, readier, more generally efficient journahst I never saw." 

In 1S43, Mr. Raymond left the Tribune for a more lucrative position in the Courier and 
Inquirer, and he continued in the latter paper until 1S50. 

The signal ability displayed by Mr. Raymond in the editorial columns of this paper, and 
particularly in tlie discussion between him and Mr. Greeley in the winter of lSi6 and 1847, 
on the subject of Socialism, became a matter of general notoriety throughout the country, 
so that when Mr. Raymond determined to found a paper of his own, he had little difficulty 
in obtaining the necessary amount of capital for beginning his enterprise. 

The New York Times began its existence in September, 1851, and was successful from the 
first. The capital invested in it was one hundred thousand dollars. At the end of eight 
years, the proprietors refused for their property the offer of one million of dollars. This 
wonderful success was undoubtedly due in no small degree to the literary and intellectual 
character and labors of Mr. Raj-mond. He was the inspiring soul of the enterprise, and from 
the time of its inception to the time of his death, he was its editor-in-chief. 

Mr. Raymond was a member of the New York Legislature in 1850 and 1851, and in the 
latter year he was Speaker of the Assembly. In 1855-7, he was Lieutenant-Governor of New 
York, and in 1865-6 he was a member of the House of Representatives in Washington. 

Mr. Raymond's political career, particularly that in Congress, has been severely criti- 
cised. But men of all parties award him the praise of having been one of the most accom- 
plished and successful of American journalists. He did a great service to the profession by 
elevating the tone of newspaper discussion, showing by his own example that it was possible 
to be earnest and brilliant without transgressing the laws of decorum. 

Mr. Raymond's publications, apart from his newspaper work, were few. He wrote a Biog- 
raphy of Abraham Lincoln, two or three College Addresses, and several political manifes- 
toes, setting forth the views of the Republican party. But his literarj- productiveness, 
through the columns of the Tribune, Courier and Inquirer, and Times, was prodigious. His 
articles in these papers, which, though necessarily dashed off in haste, were often of a 
high order of literary merit, would fill a large number of volumes. As an evidence of his 
power of concentration and of rapid production in cases of emergency, it may be mentioned 
that on the occasion of the death of Daniel Webster, the Times for the following day, October 
25th, 1852, contained a biography of Webster, twenty-six columns in length, every word of 
which was written and put in tj-pe in the few hours intervening between the news that 
Webster was dying and the hour that the paper went to press. Of that remarkable bio- 
graphical sketch, sixteen columns were written by Mr. Raymond himself, in a space of less 
than half a day ! 

A Biography of Mr. Raymond has been written by Mr. Augustus Maverick, in a large vol- 
ume of 501 pages, entitled Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 411 

W. H. Hurlbut. 

William Henry Hurlbut, 1827 , of the New York World, is 

probably, of all the living journalists of America, who have made journal- 
ism a distinct and exclusive profession, the one most highly educated, as he 
is the most brilliant and versatile. Unlike some of our other leading 
journalists, he has had every advantage which education and opportunity 
could bestow. Besides a thorough classical and academic training, and 
familiarity with the languages and literatures of the leading nations of 
Europe, he has had large experience of travel and of intercourse with 
men in all the great centres of power. These advantages he utilizes to 
the last degree, and he throws himself into the work of writing, on the 
exigencies of the hour, with a fulness of resource and an abandon of effort 
that are marvellous. 

Mr. Hurlbut was born in Charleston, S. C. Up to the time of his entering college, he was 
educated in Philadelphia, by his father, Mr. M. L. Hurlbut, who had opened a classical school 
in that city, and who was a man of superior parts and learning. Under these favorable 
auspices, he was grounded with extraordinary care and thoroughness in the knowledge of 
Greek and Latin. He entered Harvard in 1845, and was graduated in 1847. After gradua- 
tion, he remained at Cambridge sls a student of theology, law, and general literature for 
eight years, including two years spent in Europe. 

In 1854, he published in Boston, Can Eden or Pictures of Cuba, which was republished in 
London by the Longmans, at the suggestion of Walter Savage Landor. 

In 1855 he adopted the profession of a writer, and went to New York. He wrote at this 
time for Putnams Magazine, The Albion, Frazer's, and the Edinburgh Review. In 1855, he 
delivered the Phi Beta Kappa Poem at Cambridge, the orator on the occiision being Henry 
Ward Beecher. 

The year 1856 was spent in Europe, and in that year he published, in the October number 
of the Edinburgh Review, the famous article on the Political Crisis in the United States, 
which atti-acted such general attention on both sides of the Atlantic. The article was 
denounced in the Senate of the United States by Butler of South Carolina. On the other 
hand, the author received letters of than"ks from Prince Albert and Lord Macaulay, and was 
elected an Honorary Foreign Member of the London Athenaeum Club. 

In 1857, he was invited by Henry J. Raymond to join the staff of the New York Times. 
He was at that time a strong opponent of the South on the Kansas question, as he had 
always been an anti-slavery man. 

In 185S he went again to Europe, and after spending "the season" in London, made "a 
continental tour with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hughes, and Lord and Lady Goderich, now the 
Marquis and Marchioness of Ripon." On his return he brought with him the proof-sheets of 
Tom Brown and Rugby, which he induced Fields of Boston to publish and introduce to the 
American public. 

In 1859 he abandoned the Republican party as revolutionary, and espoused the cause of 
Douglas in the Times. When, after the election of 1860, Raymond decided to support the 
Lincoln administration, Mr. Hurlbut amicably left hira. 

In I'^GI he went South, on private affairs, to his sister's in Charleston, and being arrested 
by a Vigilance Committee, in Atlanta, Ga., he went at his own expense with his accusers to 
Richmond. There, after being imprisoned for a time, ho was released, in January, 1862, by 
order of the Confederate Commissioner Lyons. The Confederate War Department, however, 
refused him a passport, unless with an agreement not to take part a^raiiist the Confederacy — 
a condition which he peremptorily declined. He remained in Richmond until the failure of 
McClellan's campaign. 



412 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In August, 1862, he escaped through the Confederate lines, and reached Washington. He 
published in the Times, at the request of Mr. Raymond, an account of his Southern experi- 
ences ; but finding himself unable to act with the party in power, he associated himself, in 
October, 1862, with the New York World, then organizing as a Democratic paper, and he 
has since that time been steadily prominent in that journal and with the Democrats oi New 
York. 

In 1864, he published a book on General McClellan and the Conduct of the War. In the 
same year he purchased the Commercial Advertiser, with Free Trade intentions and asso- 
ciates; but, as the association could not agree, the Advertiser was sold, in 1867, to Thurlow 
Weed. 

Mr. Hurlbut went to Mexico on private business in 1866, and was invited to the capital by 
the unfortunate Maximilian. In 1867, as the representative of the New York W<jrld, he 
visited the World's Fair at Paris, and the Centenary Festival of St. Peter at Rome. Two 
years later, on the invitation of the Empress Eugenie and of M. De Lesseps, he visited Tur- 
key, Syria, and Egypt, before and during the fetes of the Suez Canal, which he described in 
the World. lie was present at the opening of the (Ecumenical Council in Rome, December 8, 

1869, and spent the winter in that city corresponding with the World. After a tour in Dalma- 
tia, Hungary, Albania, Greece, and European Turkey, he returned home in the summer of 

1870. In January of 1871, he was invited to accompany the United States Expedition to San 
Domingo, during which he wrote and published, in the World, an account, the only one 
tolerably complete, in the English, or indeed in any language, of the modern history, of that 
country. 

Mr. Hurlbut is an apt illustration of Buffon's saying, that the style is the man. Other 
American writers for the press have had scholarly training on the one hand, or world- 
experience on the other, but few, if any, have so successfully combined the two. His leaders 
and letters, in the World, have that peculiar ease and that raciness which are found only in 
the writings of men who have not merely read much and closely, but have mingled freely 
with society in all its phases. The sentences are neither too long nor too short, but judi. 
ciously varied: the words are thoughtfully chosen and thoughtfully placed, yet with seeming 
artlessness ; the keys and the pitch of the theme are incessantly varied ; and the writer 
wields his instrument at will, never going too far, but hammering, or cutting, or stinging, 
or bantering, as the occasion or the subject demands and his own good taste approves. 

Mr. Hurlbut, besides his knowledge of the classics, is master of the leading languages of 
continental Europe, and familiar with its literature and its history. He is thus enabled to 
enrich his contributions with the acciimulated gleanings of many tongues and many lands, 
not interlarding his English with quotations and italicised phrases, but in the way of apt 
allusion, accurate statement, breadth of A'iew, and diversified culture. 

" We admit the practical force and verbal vigor of Horace Greeley's leading articles; we 
admire the breadth of philosophic thought and large style of Parke Godwin's ; we know 
the judiciousness of Raymond's, the immaculateness of Dana's, the dignity and complete- 
ness of Manton Marble's, the gravity of Godkin's — but the unique, the brilliant, the unri- 
valled Corinthian style of one of the writers of the New York Workl, whose articles whip 
and bewilder and amuse the mind, is a matter for special consideration. Whether he discusses 
the opera, Kilpatrick, Sickles, Butler, Seward, Sumner, or Grant; H. G. or 'Sorosis;' art, 
music, or literature ; his articles are alike exuberant, unscrupulous, and remarkable. He is 
the most audacious, familiar, and brilliant of American journalists, and handles with un- 
common ease and in a rapid manner the most diverse subjects ; yet probably makes no more 
permanent impression on the political mind of the country than so much foam on its shores. 
Who that has read his articles but has admitted the sweep and dash of the style, the free 
handling — as painters would call it, the bold touch ? Although no man's articles are more 
invariably recognized, none are more original and unexpected in treatment. His alliterative 
phrases and rich fund of expression, his Scriptural allusions, which are the envy or abom- 
ination of enlightened readers, are the unfailing characteristics of his work. He covers the 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 413 

gravest and heaviest subjects with the very foam of human speech, and freshens the driest 
mind witli the cool, full shock of his style. His sanj froid, audacity, playfulness, and fluency 
give one a shock like the sea-foam of a running wave, and, like it, melt away in noise, leaving 
you not exactly sure of the drift of the matter. In one word, Mr. llurlbut is the prince of 
perHfleun. Only a polished and adroit mind can persijle. Mr. Ilurllmt ha.s a polished and 
adroit mind. But his knowledge, his experience, are used only as a moans to shine, not to 
warm. The intellectual light that radiates from his works is an artificial light, meant to 
dazzle and please the luxurious, not to send heat to some freezing little one of our demo- 
cratic life." — Eugene Benson, in the Galaxy. 



E. L. Godkin. 

Edwin L. Godktn, 1831 , editor of the Nation, represents still 

another element of American journalism, appreciably different from any of 
those already named. In a paper such as The Nation, news is no longer 
king. Independent and trustworthy criticism on the living issues of the 
day form the one predominating element in a periodical of this kind, and 
for such a function Mr. Godkin has acknowledged aptitudes of a high order. 

Mr. Godkin was born in Wicklow County, thirty miles from Dublin, Ireland. He was edu- 
cated at a Grammar-school near Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, and afterwards at Queen's 
CoUoge, Belfast. 

After le;iving college, and while preparing himself for the bar, he waa invited by Mr. 
Kniglit Hunt, who then edited the Loudon Daily News, and whose attention had been 
attracted by some of Mr. Godkiu's contributions to the periodical press, to go to Turkey as 
the Correspondent of that paper, in view of the war then impending between Turkey and 
Russia. He went out accordingly in that capacity in the fall of 1853, reaching the Turkish 
headquarters on the Danube immediately after the action of Oltenitza. He passed the win- 
ter in the Turkish camp at Kalafat on the upper Danube, crossed the river with the main 
body in the summer of 1854, after witnessing the operations at Silistria, and passed the fall 
travelling about in the Danubian Principalities, and in Transylvania. In January, 1855, he 
■went to the Crimea, and pjissed the remainder of the winter at Eupatoria, going to Sebasto- 
pol in April, where he witnessed the battles of the Tchernaya, of June 18th, and the final 
assault on the place. After some excursions in Asia Minor, he returned to England in the 
following winter, broken down in health. 

In the fall of 1856, he came to the United States, and passed the months of November, De- 
cember, and January following, in a horseback journey through the Southern and South- 
western States, an account of which was communicated to the Daily News, in a series of 
Letters. 

On returning to New York, he determined to settle there and engage in the practice of the 
law, and entered the office of Mr. David Dudley Field by way of preparation, and in 1858 he 
Mas admitted to the bar. In 1859 his health again broke down, and he returned to Europe, 
passing the years 1861-62 on the continent, mainly in Paris and Switzerland, but doing no 
work beyond making occasional editorial communications to the Daily News on American 
questions. 

He returned to New York towards the close of 1862, and until the establishment of the 
Nation, in 1865, was the New York Correspondent of the Daily News, and a regular editorial 
contributor to the New York Times. 

Beyond a few article.? in the Quarterlies, on political and commercial topics, Mr. God- 
kin's literary work has been done wholly for the newspaper press. The paper with which 
he is more particularly identified aa an American writer, is the Nation, already moutioncd. 

35* 



414 AMERICAK LITERATURE. 

It was begun in 1865, with Mr. Godkin as editor, and a stock company as proprietors. In 
1866, the company was dissolved, and the paper passed into the hands of Mr. Godkin and two 
other gentlemen. Mr. Godkin, however, has always been its chief and responsible editor. 

The permanent establishment of the Nation marks a new and interesting phase in Ameri- 
can jonrnals. For many years France, Germany, and England — especially England — have 
had weekly critical papers devoted to politics and pure literature. The Athenaeum, Soecta- 
tor, and Saturday Review are familiar to all Americans. But it was reserved for the Nation 
to show that a weekly of like character and ability was also possible in the United States. 
At first the success of the Nation was hy no means assured. It had not only to create its 
public, so to speak, but it had to compete with the Round Table, which had been previously 
started. But the Round Table, while occasionally brilliant, lacked definiteness of aim and 
careful editing, and hence disappeared, as a separate journal, in 1868, leaving the field clear to 
its younger rival. Since that time the progress of the Nation has been uniform, if not rapid, 
and it is now a paying enterprise. Its circle of appreciative readers grows steadily from 
year to year, and it is an acknowledged power in the land. It is, on the whole, the best 
written and most ably edited paper in the country. Although of course the work of many 
pens and of different minds, its style is uniformly clear and elegant, free from vulgarity and 
extravagance. Mr. Godkin's contributions are numerous and varied, ranging over the whole 
field covered by the journal, to which he has succeeded in imparting a general tone of health 
and raciness. 

Parke Godwin. 

Pabke Godwin, LL. D., 1816 , has acquired distinction in several 

walks of authorship, but is chiefly known by his connection with the New 
York Evening Post, of which he has been at different times the associate 
editor. 

Mr. Godwin was bom at Paterson, N. J., and graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1834. 
He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Kentucky, but did not practise. From 1837 
to 1853 he was associated with his father-in-law, Mr. Bryant, in the Evening Post. In l"-43 
he undertook a weekly periodical, the Pathfinder, which, however, was continued only three 
months. He was a frequent contributor to the Democratic Review, and afterwards to Put- 
nam's Magazine, writing chiefly on political and literary subjects. He was for a time editor 
of Putnam. In 1865 he resumed his connection with the Post, which position he still holds. 

Mr. Godwin, besides his newspaper and magazine articles, is the author of several separate 
volumes. Among them may be named the following : Zschokke's Tales, and part of Goethe's 
Autobiography, translated from the German ; A Popular View of the Doctrines of Charles 
Fourier ; Constructive Democracy ; Vala, a mythological tale, founded on incidents in the 
life of Jenny Lynd ; A Handbook of Universal Biography; Out of the Past, a collection of 
papers on literature and criticism ; A History of France. The work last named is the one 
on which he has spent most labor and study. It is not a mere compilation, or rehash of old 
jnaterials, but is written from original investigation, and intended as a classical work. The 
first volume, giving a history of Ancient Gaul down to the time of Charlemagne, was pub- 
lished in 1860. 

Mr. Godwin received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the College of New 
Jersey, in 1872. 

THE JOURNALIST. 

No man requires a larger range of intellect, more varied acquirements, or greater strength 
of character, than the conductor of a public journal. Of course, we allude to one who acts 
with a full sense of the dignity and worth of his calling, and a conscientious desire to discharge 
its duties. Neither statesman, lawyer, nor divine moves in a broader sphere, or has more 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 415 

occasion for the use of the noldest faculties both of mind and heart. The journalist stands 
in iiiimcdiatc contact with the public mind ; he gives a tone to public sentiment; he is the 
guardiaa and guide of public morals. Thousands of men, each morning and eveninj^, listen 
to his voice, are moved by his persuasions, are chastised by his rebukes, or corrupted by his 
license. lie may elevate the bad, or degrade the good — he can stimulate the worst or the 
best pjissious. 

Ilis influence again differs from that of others not only in its directness but its persistency. 
While theirs is confined to particular and distant occasions, his acts incessantly. The orator 
agitates only while he is speaking; the preacher is hemmed in by the walls of his church, 
and the limits of a Sabbath-day ; the statesman seldom steps out of his bureau ; the man of 
science is fixed among his retorts and crucibles ; and the teacher's sway is confined to his 
schoolroom. But the editor is universally as well as perpetually at work. As the mails carry 
his speculations from one city to another, hia action spreads like tiie waves of a pool, and be- 
fore the last ripple has subsided, the waters at the centre are again disturbed. Even while 
he sleeps his thoughts are awake, entering other minds, and moulding them to good or evil. 

Why is it that a means so intimately connected with human happiness as the pixjss, so 
powerful over social issues and human destinies, has so seldom been used by men of the 
loftiest endowments? 

It is not because the sphere of the journalist is too contracted for a noble ambition ; for 
it is a sphere as wide as the universe of intelligence, and as durable as language. As a 
means of swaying the minds of men, which is the essence of power, as an instrument for 
elevating society, which is the object of goodness, as a vehicle for the expression and enforce- 
ment of thought, the press is without an equal among all the constituted agencies of human 
utterance. No voice reaches so far as the voice of the press ; no book arrests a wider atten- 
tion or penetrates a deeper retirement. 

It is not because the subjects with which newspaper writing is mostly occupied, are tem- 
porary and incidental. That species of composition is not confined to chrouicling events, 
or to fighting the battles of transient parties. Higher objects often engage it. The instruc- 
tion of society in the nature of government, the inculcation of great principles, the applica- 
tion of judicious criticism, the development and control of social tendencies, the direction 
of public opinion, the exposition of public characters, the prosecution of grand moral re- 
forms, and the correction of prevailing iniquities and frauds, are among its principal func- 
tions. The editor is stationed, as a sentinel upon the watch-towers of society, to warn it of 
the approach of dangers; to summon it to battle, and to cheer it on to success. 

Nor is it because there is anything in the condition of the press to cripple its activity and 
arrest its influence. No better condition could be required for it than obtains in this 
country. It is founded on a basis of perfect freedom. Liberty of action, which is the aim 
of the democratic doctrine to introduce into all kinds of business, it has enjoyed from the 
beginning. Government has never dared to impose a restraint upon it; it has been exposed 
to the stimulus of competition ; it has received favor from all political parties. Whoever 
may have fancied that he possessed talent enough to undertake a public journal, has been 
at liberty to do so, and lie has had the opportunity of displaying all the enthusiasm and 
talent that he could bring to the task. 

We must look elsewhere, then, for the causes of the singular fact to which we refer. We 
must look, not so much to journalists themselves, as to the community in which they live. 
It is because so low a standard hits been established in regard to journalism, that so few men 
of the strongest intellect and character have taken it up; they have sought distinction iu 
other spheres less influential, but supposed to be more honorable. Because society has not 
required more, more has not been done. Journalists are what society has made them; if 
they fall short of the lofty dignity of their vocation, it is because society falls short of its 
demands. Johnson, in his prologue, says that " they who live to please, must please to 
live," which is especially true of the press. It has been regarded as a more agent for ploiis- 
ing society, and therefore it has aspired to uo higher function. It has failed to perceive its 



416 AMERICAN LITERATtTBE. 

real value ; it has failed in asserting its claims ; it has failed in discharging its dntles as an 
instructor ; it has failed in asserting the moral power of which it is capable. 

John R. Thompson. 

John R. Thompson, 1823 , long connected with the Southern Lit- 
erary Messenger, and now with the New York Evening Post, has done good 
service to the periodical literature of the country, 

Mr. Tliompson was born in Richmond, and educated at the University of Virginia, where 
he took the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1845. lie practised law for a short time, but 
afterwards gave himself up to the pursuit and profession of literature, for which he was well 
fitted by nature. He has produced no books, yet few men in the Southern States have been 
more widely or more favorably known by their literary labors, or have exerted a greater 
influence upon the native literature of that region. Mr. Thompson's chief work has been 
done through the columns of the Southern Literary Messenger, which he edited from 1847 
to the breaking out of the war, and which, as it was the longest lived, so it was the most 
high-toned and successful of all the Southern literary magazines. His articles, both prose 
and verse, lie scattered through the pages of his own magazine, and of others, he having 
never collected them into volumes. Mr. Thompson has siicceeded well also as a popiilar 
lecturer, his happiest effort in this line being a lecture upon The Life and Character of Edgar 
A. Poe. During the war he went to England, and while there contributed to Blackwood, 
and to various other English periodicals. He is at present engaged upon the editorial staff 
of the New York Evening Post. 

A PICTURE. 

Across the narrow, dusty street, 

I see, at early dawn, 
A little girl, with glancing feet 

As agile as the fawn. 

An hour or so, and forth she goes. 

The school she brightly seeks; 
She carries in her hand a rose. 

And two upon her cheeks. 

The sun mounts up the torrid sky — 

The bell for dinner rings — 
My little friend, with laughing eye. 

Comes gayly back and sings. 

Tlie week wears off", and Saturday, 

A welcome day, I ween, 
Gives time for girlish romp and play — 

How glad my pet is seen ! 

Bnt Sunday — in what satins great 

Does she not then appear! 
King Solomon, in all his state. 

Wore no such pretty gear. 

I flung her every day a kiss. 

And one she flung to me, 
I know not truly when it is 

She prettiest may be. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 417 

George D. Prentice. 

Geouge Dknison Prentice, 1802-1870, for forty years editor of the 
Louisville Journal, holds a conspicuous place among American journalists. 

Mr. Prentice was a native of Preston, Conn., and graduated at Brown University in 1823. 
From 1828 to 1830 he was editor of the New England Weekly Review. In 1831 he became 
editor of the Louisville Journal, and retained that position until his death. Under his edi- 
torial management the Journal became one of the leading papers in the country, the fear- 
less exponent of Henry Clay Whigism, the violent opponent of the Democratic party, and 
the receptacle of Prentice's inexhaustible wit and satire. Prentice's witticisms have become 
proverbial. A selection of them was made and published in book-form in 1859, under the 
title of Pronticeiana. Prentice also published in the Journal several good poems, among 
■which are The Flight of Years, Sabbath Evening, To My Wife, etc. 

George Ripley. 

George Ripley, 1802 , has done service to American literature in 

many ways. He was, with C. A. Dana, associate editor of Appleton's 
American Encyclopaedia. But his chief work has been performed in con- 
nection with the New York Tribune, where for the last twenty-four years 
he has held the post of literary critic. 

Mr. Ripley was bom at Greenfield, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in 1823. He studied 
divinity also at Cambridge, and was for several years pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston. 
In 1844, '5, '6, he was associated with Hawthorne and others in the famous Brook Farm 
experiment at West Roxbury. In 1847 he removed to New York, where he has lived ever 
since. In 1840-1811, he was, with Emerson and Margaret Fuller, associate editor of The Dial. 
From 1844 to 1848 he edited the Harbinger, a Fourierite organ. In 1849 he became literary 
critic of the Tribune, which position he still holds. His literary criticisms have won for 
him high consideration. His separate publications are the following: Discourses on the 
Philosophy of Religion ; Letters to Andrew Norton on the Latest Form of Infidelity ; Speci- 
mens of Foreign Literature (edited), 14 vols.; with Bayard Taylor, Uand-Book of Literature 
and the Fine Arts. 

Charles A. Dana. 

Charles Anderson Dana, 1819 , editor of the New York Sun, 

has been prominent as a journalist for more than twenty years past. 

Mr. Dana is a native of New Hampshire. He passed two years at Harvard, but on 
account of disease of the eyes was obliged to leave the University before graduating. He 
edited the Harbinger for a time, and contributed to the Boston Chronotype. He was asso- 
ciated with George Ripley in editing Appleton's Cyclopaedia, and he edited the Household 
Book of Poetry. He was for a long time prominent in the editorial management of the New 
York Tribune ; and after leaving that paper he assumed the editorship of the Now York Sun, 
in which position he still continues. 

Mr. Dana was Assistant Secretary of War in 1863^. 

Samuel Bowles, 1826 , is a native and a resident of Springfield, Mass. He left school to 

enter his father's printing-office and editorial rooms at the ag<^ of sevonteon, ami has been 
engaged as a journalist ever since, his paper being the well-known Springfield Kopublican. 

2B 



418 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

He has written the following works, all on one theme: Across the Continent, a Stage-Ride 
in 1865 ; The Switzerland of America, or Colorado, its Parks and Mountains, in Saddle and 
Camp, in 1S68 ; The Pacific Railroad Open, IbSO ; Our New West, or Travelling Experiences 
between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. 

John Bigelow, 1817 , a native of Ulster County, N. Y., and an active journalist. He 

contributed to the New York Review and the Democrat Review, and was for a time asso- 
ciated with Mr. Bryant in the Evening Post. He published a book, Jamaica in 1850, or The 
Effects of Sixteen Years of Freedom on a Slave Colony. He was minister to the Court of 
France in 1865-6. 

Henry C. Watson, 1831-1869, was born in Baltimore. He came to Phil.adelphia at an early 
age, and was engaged on the editorial staff of the North American, Evening Journal, etc. 
He died in Sacramento, Cal., while editing a paper there. He wrote Camp-Fires of the Revo- 
lution ; Nights in a Blockhouse ; Old Bell of Independence; Yankee Tea Party ; Lives of the 
Presidents of the United States ; Heroic Women of History ; Romance of History, etc. 

Charles H. Sweetser, 1841 , graduated at Amherst, in the class of 1862. He has pub- 
lished Songs of Amherst ; History of Amherst ; Tourist's and Invalid's Guide to the North- 
west. Mr. Sweetser founded The Round Table, The Evening Mail, and some other news- 
paper enterprises. 

Charles Norchoff, 1830 , has been for ten years or more connected with the editorial 

department of the New York Evening Post. He is a Prussian by birth. He came to th^- 
United States in 1834:, and entered the navy in 1845, He has written a good deal for Har- 
per's periodicals. His separate publications are the following: Man-of-War Life ; The Mer- 
chant Vessel; Whaling and Fisliing; Stories of the Island World; Nine Years a Sailor; 
Cape Cod and All Along Shore. He edited Kerr's Landscape Gardening, and has written 
several Free-Trade Pamphlets. 

Charles J. Biddle. 

Major Charles John Biddle, 1819 , editor of The Age, is a 

leading representative of journalism in Philadelphia. 

Major Biddle is a son of the late Nicholas Biddle, and is a native and a resident of Phila- 
delphia. He was educated at Princeton, graduating in the class of 1837. He studied law 
and practised for several years. He enlisted as a volunteer in the Mexican war, and \v;i- 
breveted Major for gallant behavior, Ue was in active service also in tlie late war. Hi- 
writings have been limited almost entirely to leading editorials for liis paptM-, hut these liive 
been of a high order and have commanded respect from his political oi)poaents luj well ac 
from his friends. 

The only separate publication which he has made was a carefully prepared essay read 
before the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and published by tiieni, in regard to the execu- 
tion of Major Andre. The essay was a reply to the strictures in the History of England by 
Lord Mahon, who pronounced the execution of Andre to be the greatest blot in the career 
of Washington. Major Biddle's essay, by the concession of the best English critics, sets this 
question at rest. 

'•The Historical Society of Philadelphia has lately-been occupied by the consideration of 
a question of some interest to us as Englishmen, namely, the execution of Major Andre ;is 
a spy during the great American War of Independence. In the last volume of his ' History 
of Englanil,' Lord Mahon brought against the memory of U'ashngton a very grave charge 
in connection with this melancholy event, terming it 'the greatest blot' upon the career 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 419 

of Washington. Zealous to defend the character of their hero, the Americans have very 
naturally been indignant at this imputation; and Major Charles J. Biddle, an eminent 
member of the above-named Society, undertook to investigate the question and to offer the 
results of his researches to the Society. We are not, of course, surprised that these results 
are altogether favorable to the American hero, but must in justice admit that we tliink that 
the evidence produced by Major Biddle would be sufficient to bring an English jury to the 
same way of thinking. 

"... If every one had had his due, the traitor Arnold would have been given up, and then 
the Americans would have let Andr^ go free. As it was, however, Washington had no 
alternative : the prisoner was regularly tried before a proper tribunal, and received the fate 
which he had incurred. Lord Mahon owes to the memory of the great American patriot 
the reparation of an apology, or else he owes to his own fame as an historian a refutation 
of the facts upon which the Americans rely." — London Critic. 

Mr. Massey, a later English historian, in his History of England in the Reign of George 
the III., refers to Major Biddle's paper "as clearly establishing the justice of Andre's sen- 
tence." 

Morton McMiehael. 

Morton McMichael, 1807 , the veteran of the North American, 

has been a prominent journalist and magazine writer for nearly half a cen- 
tury. 

Mr. McMichael was bom In Burlington County, N. J. He contributed to the Philadelphia 
magazines from 1824 to 1844, and has been editor of the Philadelphia North American from 
1844 to the present time. He is an accomplished speaker, and formerly was engaged much 
in public lecturing. 

John W. Forney. 

John Weiss Forney, 1817 , is known as a journalist in connection 

with his two papers, the Press of Philadelphia, and the Chronicle of 
Washington. 

Mr. Forney was bom in Lancaster, Pa. He began, in 1833, as a printer's boy in the office 
of the Lancaster Journal. In 1845 he went to Philadelphia, and for a long time edited The 
Pennsylvanian. From 1851 to 1855, he was Clerk of the House of Representatives at 
Washington, and while in that position edited the Union. In 1857, he began the Press, 
which he has continued ever since. From 1861 to 186S, he was Clerk of the Senate at Wash- 
ington. He began in 1861 the Washington Chronicle, in addition to the Press. After resign- 
ing his position as Clerk of the Senate, he was made Collector of the Port of Philadelphia. 
But he resigned this post also, in order that he might devote himself more exclusively to his 
work !is a journalist. 

Mr. Forney has made no separate publications of any note. But his editorials and his 
editorial correspondence have been marked by uncommon ability, and have had a great in- 
fluence on the public mind. 

R. Shelton Mackenzie. 

KoBERT Shelton Mackenzie, D. C. L., LL. D., 1809 , is the author 

of several works, both prose and verse, but is chiefly known as a journalist, 
and in connection with the Philadelphia Press, 



420 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Mackenzie -was born in Limerick County, Ireland, and educated at a school in Fermoy. 
At the age of thirteen he was apprenticed to an apothecary in Cork. He studied mediciua 
and obtained on examination the degree of M, D. He opened a school in Fermoy. In 1829 
he edited a journal in Staffordshire, England. In 1830-31, he was engaged in literary labor 
in London. From 1834 to 1851 he was the English correspondent of the New York Evening 
Star, and contributed to various American periodicals. In 18-17 he took an active pait in 
the proceedings of Brougham's Law-Amendment Society. In 1852 he came to America, and 
was engaged for several years in New York writing for various journals. In 1857 he became 
literary and foreign editor of Forney's Press, Philadelphia, which position he still holds. 
^ His separate publications are the following: Lays of Palestine; Titian, an art novel, 3 vols.; 
Partnership en Commandite, a legal work ; Mornings at Matlock, a collection of stories, 3 
vols.; Eits of Blarney ; Tressilian, or The Story-tellers; Life of Charles Dickens^ Life of 
Walter Scott. Dr. Mackenzie has edited a valuable series of works, enriching them with 
notes from his own recollections and reading. The following are the works which he has 
edited : Noctes Ambrosianse, 5 vols. ; Dr. Maginn's Writings, 5 vols. ; ShieFs Sketches of the 
Irish Bar, 2 vols.; and ether works by De Quincey, Lady Morgan, etc. 

" The pervading personality, lively spirit, and great accuracy of Dr. Mackenzie's notes as 
a book editor constitute their value. His life has been passed in intimacy and correspon- 
dence with the leading literati and politicians of his time, and he has a remarkable memory 
for dates, events, and persons, which overflows into expression when he puts pen to paper. 
Such also is his conversation, — crowded with anecdotes of notable and noticeable persons 
and things ; and no one would dream, from his lively conversation, that he had nearly ex- 
hausted libraries as a reader and contributed to fill them as a writer." — Allibone. 

Dr. Mackenzie received the degree of D. C. L. from Oxford, and that of LL. D. from Glas- 
gow. 

Albert D. Richardson. 

Albert D. Eichardson, 1833-1869, was one of the leading War Cor- 
respondents of the New York Tribune. 

Mr. Richardson was born in Franklin, Mass. His schooling was limited to the usual at- 
tendance upon the district school, and one year in the Ilolliston Academy, in which latter 
place he began the study of the classics and the higher English branches. After leaving the 
Academy, he taught a district school for two terms. At the age of eighteen, in 1851, he set 
out for the West, stopping at Pittsburg. Not finding anything better to do, he took a dis- 
trict school in the neighborhood, and taught one term. He then began work as local 
reporter for the Pittsburg Journal. He began also to try his hand at play-writing, and was 
in high glee on the occasion of selling one of his farces to Barney Williams, the comic actor. 
" I shall never forget how rich I felt, when I was a boy of eighteen, and had sold a play to 
Barney Williams for ten dollars, and got the money in my pocket." 

In 1852, he went to Cincinnati, and became local editor to the Sun of that city. He con- 
tinued his labors there as reporter for various papers until 1857. While in Cincinnati, he 
was married to Miss Mary L. Pease. 

In 1857, he removed to Kansas, and took an active part in the fierce political struggle 
going on there, attending conventions and making political speeches, and writing graphic 
accounts of affairs to the Boston Journal. 

In 1859, the gold excitement at Pike's Peak being at fever-heat, Mr. Richardson, having 
deposited his wife and children in safety at Franklin, Mass., set out on his first journey over 
the plains to the Rocky Mountains, Horace Greeley among others being in the company. 
His next expedition, made in the same year, was a wandering journey, mostly on horseback 
and muleback, through the western territories, visiting the Cherokee and Choctaw reserva- 



PROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 421 

tions, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and writing for the eastern papers letters descrip- 
tive of all that he saw or did. In 1860, he went again to Pike's Peak as special correspond- 
ent of the New York Tribune. 

In 1860-61, he nndertook the perilous job of going through the Southwestern States a.s a 
secret correspondent of the Tribune, and in this capacity travelled for three or four months, 
writing letters, chiefly from New Orleans, and reporting whatever he could hear or see, and 
making his way back through Baltimore just before the first actual bloodshed of the war. 

For the next two years, he followed the armies of the North as War Correspondent of tho 
Tribune. While attempting to pass the Vicksburg batteries, in May, 1803, he was captured, 
and was kept iu close confinement for twenty months, in seven different prisons, Libby and 
Salisbury being the last. At length, in December, 18G4, he made his escape from Salisbury, 
and four weeks after reached the Union lines at Knoxville, Teun. During his captivity, his 
wife and one of his children had died. 

After the close of the war, his time was spent mostly in authorship. He brought out in 
rapid succession three works, all very popular, partly no doubt from the nature of their 
subjects, but mainly from the adventurous spirit and the graphic power of the writer. These 
were: The Field, The Dungeon, and The Escape, giving an account of his experiences as a 
war correspondent ; Beyond the Mississippi, describing the old West as it was, and the new 
West as it is; and The Personal History of Ulysses S. Grant. 

Mr. Richardson died December 2, 1S69, having been shot in the Tribune Office by Mr. 
Daniel McFarland. A volume has since been published, called Garnered Sheaves, contain- 
ing a selection from Mr. Richardson's Miscellaneous writings, and a Memoir. 

George Alfred Townsend. 

George Alfred Townsend, 1841 , the "Gath" of the Chicago 

Tribune, has had a large and varied experience as a War Correspondent, 
both in Europe and America, and has written for nearly all the leading 
journals, — the New York Herald, World, Cincinnati Commercial, Chi- 
cago Tribune, and others of like standing. 

Mr. Townsend was born at Georgetown, the county seat of Sussex, in the south of Delaware, 
of parents whose English predecessors settled upon the Chesapeake about 1680. The Town- 
sends, a numerous family in the Peninsula, appear to have Wen Quakers originally; the 
Milbournes, family of Mr. Townsend's mother, were probably Virginia Puritans. Mr. Town- 
Bend's father, Stephen Townsend, was a mechanic, who became a Methodist preacher about 
1835, and is still living in Philadelphia. In the course of his father's itinerate career Alfred 
was made a native of Delaware in the year 1841. He was educated chiefly at the Philadelphia 
High-School, where he graduated in 1S59. The last two years of his High-School course were 
almost wholly devoted to newspaper and fugitive writing. While still at school he selected 
journalism for his profession, as promising to afford opportunities for travel, and perhaps 
for future authorship. Immediately upon graduating he was made news editor of the Phila- 
delphia Inquirer, and afterwards city editor of the Press, spending two active years in Phila- 
delphia, and accredited as the writer of frequent poems and prose sketches upon many pass- 
ing topics. He published a play in 1860, and corresponded from Philadelphia for the New 
York Herald until he entered its corps of army corresponilents in 1SC2. 

Newspaper corresponilence had previously made some display in the columns of the throe' 
New York morning journals, the Herald, Tribune, and Times, notably in tho letters of Ed- 
ward H. House and Hirry Neill. Bayard Taylor, N. P. Willis, and others, hail, many j-eara 
previously, distinguished themselves as tourist correspondents, but the day had como when 
news was to be king in journalism. An iuuodation of oew young writers appeared at tho 
86 



422 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

outbreak of the war, and the nature of the volunteer armies seemed to demand that these 
■writers should be permitted to follow the campaigns and put the soldiers in communication 
with their Northern neighbors and families. 

Mr. Townsend had the advantage over many of these in fair schooling and in many years 
of leisure for desultory reading, when he availed himself of the oddities of a country parson's 
library. He could read before he was four years old, and he is reported to have read the 
whole of Matthew Henry's Commentaries at fourteen. Uncle Tom's Cabin was the only 
novel ever admitted to his father's house, but the old Apprentices' Library, in Philadelphia, 
gave him a good chance at travels and history. 

Mr. Townsend began operation as a war correspondent in the service of the Herald. The 
regulations of that paper did not permit a correspondent the use of his name, and hence Mr. 
Townsend's battle-writings in that journal were never accredited to him. It is known, how^ 
ever, that he made the first detailed report in the United States of the Six Days' Battles on 
the Virginia Peninsula and of McClellan's retreat, covering three full pages, or about twenty- 
five columns, of the Herald. He had been sick with the typhus fever for a week prior to that 
retreat, and after writing the account of the Battle of Cedar Mountain, some weeks later, he 
suffered a relapse, and so sailed to Europe in the fall. 

An attempt to lecture upon the American War, in Lancashire and the North of England, 
immediately after his arrival, resulted in the loss ef all his ready money, whereupon he pre- 
cipitated himself into London serial literature, and achieved a handsome success, obtaining 
thereby means to travel on the continent. 

These foreign peregrinations were not without fruit in home correspondence. He was 
constantly afoot, chasing up historical clues to their places of reminiscence, or reading in 
the British Museum, the Imperial Bibliotheque, and the Library of St. Genevieve. This ad- 
ditional lease of flitting scholarship enabled Mr. Townsend, on his arrival in the United 
States, to take instant position on the American journals. 

He returned to the army in April, 1865, as correspondent for the New York World, and 
his first letter, " The Battle of Five Forks," to which his name was appended, made him 
a prompt reputation. He followed it up with a series of vigorous letters, to which the dra- 
matic element gave novelty, reciting all the great tableaux at the close of the war, the burn- 
ing of Richmond, the assassination of the President and its retribution, and the disbaudment 
of the great armies. He was invited also to lecture in the leading cities and to contribute 
to their presses. 

For the ensuing six years he was probably the most fertile newspaper correspondent in 
the language, appearing on the spot of evei-y great transaction at home or abroad, the 
Prusso-Austrian war, the Great Exhibition, and the disenthralment of Venice. Meantime, 
in three winter courses, he lectured nearly two hundred nights, and published five books. 
His fluency of description and rapidity of movemenfexceeded even the credit they obtained 
for him, so that he wrote under pseudonyms to avoid the imputation of " writing himself out." 

In 1867, on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Mr. Townsend selected Washington city 
as his headquarters, and conducted the political correspondence of six journals at the same 
time. His success here was commensurate with his previous entei-prise ; perhaps his most 
notable letters were those bearing the signature of " Swede," in the Cincinnati Commercial. 

Since 1868 he has been in the exclusive employment of the Chicago Tribune, the leading 
newspaper of the Northwest, writing both editorial and correspondence, the latter over the 
signature of •'Oath." 

In .addition to his newspaper work, — which has included at different times the editor- 
ship of two literary papers, the New York Citizen and the Washington Capital, Mr. Town- 
send has written a vast deal of private composition for mercantile enterprises and addresses 
for colleges and societies. 

His most widely known letters are the Battle of Five Forks, the Entrance of Victor Em- 
manuel into Venice, the Battle of Gettysburg, the narrative of the John Brown raid, and 
the keen personal sketches of public men in the " Gath " letters. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 423 

Mr. Townsend's separate publications, in book form, are tlie following: Campaigns of a 
Non-Combataut and his Romaunt abroad during the War, a series of sketches of Virginia ia 
the War of Secession, intended to convey the impressions of a novice upon the social, farm- 
side, and byplay features of warfare ; The Story of the Conspiracy against the Lives of the 
Executive Officers of the United States in 1865, composed of letters taken from the New York 
World, written freshly in the days of the assassination; The Real Life of Abraham Lin- 
coln ; The New World compared with the Old, a description of the American Government, 
its institutions, and enterprises, and the corresponding features of European Governments, 
England and France particularly, a book of more than 700 octavo pages ; Lost Abroad, a 
romaunt and tale of American character in Europe during our Civil War, about 500 pages; 
Poems, chiefly studies in verse and idyllic pieces upon the scenery of the Chesapeake, con- 
taining fifty pieces; A History of the Administrations, in two large volumes, contracted for, 
but unfinished. 

Alexander C. Wilson. 

Alexander C. Wilson, 1824 , the London manager of the New 

York Associated Press, has reached his present position through the usual 
stages of journalism, as editor, contributor, and correspondent. He is, like 
Mr. Townsend, a graduate of the Philadelphia High-School. 

Mr. Wilson was born at Trenton, N. J., sou of James J. Wilson, a popular journalist and 
politician of that day. Young Wilson received such instruction as the schools at Trenton 
afi'orded, until, at the age of fifteen, lie went to Philadelphia, and entered the Central High- 
Sciiool of that city, then under the supervision of Prof A. D. Bache. Mr. Wilson studied law 
in the office of Peter McCall, of Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in lS4o. While 
waiting for practice, he beguiled his leisure by contributions to Park Ben, jamin'c "New 
World ; " and after the experience of a few weeks was invited to replace that gentleman in 
the editorsliip. 

Soon after, he removed to Belvidere, N. J., with the intention of uniting the practice of his 
profession with the conduct of a weekly journal, but relinquished the project on the invita- 
tion of Henry J. Raymond to become associate editor of the New York Times. He remained 
in the Times, as writer of leaders, and aa general manager, for several years. 

Needing rest, with health impaired by labor, Mr. Wilson witlidrew from active work, con- 
tributing still, however, to the Times, to Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, the Independent, 
and other periodicals, as strength and leisure permitted ; never, however, over his own 
signature. 

In ISGG, Mr. James W. Simonfon having undertaken the task of reorganizing the system 
of the New York Associ^ited Press, invited Mr. Wilson to visit Europe, and so modify the 
machinery on thiit tside of the ocean, as to adapt it to the conditions imposed by the successful 
laying of the Atlantic Cable. This task accomplished, Mr. Wilson has since remained in 
London iu charge of the European service of the Associated Press. 

Whitelaw Reid. 

WniTELAW Reid, 1839 , Managing Editor of the New York 

Tribune, first made liis mark in literature as a newspaper Correspondent, 
under the signature of Agate. 

Mr. Reid was born in Xenia, Ohio, son of Robert Charlton Reid, an elder in the Cameronian 
Covenanting Church. Young Reid, after passing through the Xenia Academy, gniduated 
with high honors at Miami University, in 1856. Immediately after graduating he became 



424 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

editor and proprietor of the Xenia News. He is next found on the staff of the Cincinnati 
Gazette. He represented the Gazette in Columbus during the meeting of the Legislature, 
his letters appearing under the name of Agate. His strong, racy English, his courage and 
energy, his fine faculties of observation, marked him as a model correspondent, and at the 
lirst outbreak of the war he was designated to accompany the Ohio troops in their mai'ch 
upon Western Virginia. Returuiog to Cincinnati, he began to write editorials for the 
Gazette, and continued for somo time in that employment, with occasional interruptions 
of field work when there was anything especially worth reporting. He was present at Fort 
Donelson,and went up the Tennessee River to Pittsburg Landing with our advance. He 
was the only correspondent on the field in that terrible scene of slaughter, to report which 
he rose from a sick-bed. He passed the fearful night between the two days of battle among 
the private soldiers on the bluff, and slept the next night on the victorious field in the tent 
of Gen. Lew Wallace. 

With the prestige of his Western achievements in journalism, Mr. Raid came to Washing- 
ton, and took charge of the Gazette bureau in that city. He distinguished himself at once 
by his bold, incisive, and energetic correspondence. Among all the pens that made and un- 
made reputations in Newspaper Row, in those stirring days, there was none more dreaded 
and more courted than that of " Agate." From a certain ascetic habit of thought, which 
may, perhaps, be derived from his severe and conscientious ancestry, he was always more 
ready to criticise than to praise, always more eager in attack than in defence. 

The routine woi'k of his Washington life was A'aried by occasional resumptions of the note- 
book and saddle. He saw and vividly reported the battle of Fredericksburg, the second Bull 
Run, and Gettysburg. His political services and his scholarly tastes were at once recognized 
by an appointment as Librarian of the House of Representatives. 

When the war ended, Mr. Reid, whose health had become somewhat impaired by unremit- 
ting labor, and who was one of those who believed in the possibility of a genuine peace, and 
in the complete restoration of the South, gave evidence of his faith by removing to Louisiana, 
and engaging, in company with General Herron, of Iowa, in the culture of cotton. They 
planted two thousand five hundred acres of land, embracing three farms, and employing 
three hundred hands. The year of 1865 was a disastrous one for planters, but in spite of this 
the two young Northerners managed their affairs with such skill and prudence that they 
closed their operations without loss. Mr. Reid employed the next year in writing two 
books : the one. After the War, gave a most complete and graphic account of the condition 
of tho South in the years 1865-6; and the other, Ohio in the War (2 vols., 8vo, 1000 pages 
each), besides being an eloquent tribute to his native State, was prepared with such pains- 
taking and elaborate research as to form a valuable addition to the history of the epoch. 

Mr. Reid, who had by this time become a co-proprietor of the Gazette, passed the greater 
part of two years on his old homestead near Xenia, engaged in literary pursuits; and in tho 
summer of 1868, his health being entirely re-established, he came to New York, at the per- 
sonal invitation of Mr. Greeley, and assumed an editorial position on the Tribune. His pro- 
motion the following year to the chair of Managing Editor was taken as a matter of course 
by all who were acquainted with the relations existing between him and the editor-in-chief. 

"It was only when charged with the administration of a great journal that the highest 
qualities of Mr. Reid's talents were developed. He had achieved gratifying successes in all 
his preliminary pursuits, but evidently attained his true field as manager of the Tribune. 
His knowledge of human nature, his capacity to see at a glance what a man is good for, and 
to put the round pegs with unerring accuracy in the round holes; his impatient rapidity of 
decision ; his instinct for news, which is like the nose of a bloodhound, and his capacity for 
compelling the respect and esteem of those with whom he is brought into relation — all 
mark him out as the predestined administrator of a great daily newspaper. If he were not 
so valuable where he is, one might sometimes regret that his absorbing office duties leave 
him comparatively so little leisure for editorial writing. But he is a facile and singularly rapid 



PROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 425 

■worker, so that often, after a day of routine toil, he shuts his sanctum for an hour, and the 
result is one of those timely and nervous articles which the next day is the talk of the clubs. 
lie is a stalwart, muscular young bachelor, six feet high, with the shoulders of a Kentucky 
Atlas; so scrupulously neat in his dress that slovenly peojjle make it a reproach to him; 
fond of society, as is natural in one who is popular in all circles; a man in whose past there 
is nothing to conceal, and in whose future there is everything to hope." — Harper's Weekly. 

James W. Simonton. 

James W. Simonton, 1824 , Manager of the New York Associated 

Press, has been an active journalist, in various capacities, as reporter, cor- 
respondent, editor, and manager, since he was twenty-one years of age. 

Mr. Simonton was bom in Columbia County, N. Y. He was reared in New York city, and 
educated in its public schools. 

At twenty-one years of age he entered upon journalism as law reporter for a city news- 
paper, at $5 per week. 

During the first year of President Polk's administration he went to Washington as a mem- 
ber of the semi-official staff of United States Senate reporters. Subsequently he joined the 
staflFof the New York Courier and Enquirer, — of which General J. Watson Webb was pro- 
prietor and Henry J. Raymond the working editor, — writing for it sketches of Congres- 
sional proceedings and debates during the session, and fulfilling the duties of an assistant 
editor under Mr. Raymond during the recess. 

In the autumn of 1850, he proceeded to California, under the patronage and with the ad- 
vice and active aid of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, Millard Fillmore, 
and other distinguished men of that day, to establish a Whig paper at the capital of the new 
State. The field being occupied by another party before his arrival on the scene, Mr. Simon- 
ton accepted an engagement on the San Francisco Courier — the first Whig paper estab- 
lished on the Pacific coast ; but after editing it for three months he returned to New York, 
and resumed his place on the Courier and Enquirer, as night-editor. 

In September, 1851, he resigned, in order to join Mr. Raymond in establishing the New 
York Times, — the capitalists who furnished the money for that enterprise having set aside 
a portion of stock in his name, to be awarded whenever he should be ready to take it at 
cost, which he subsequently did. 

His former experience in Washington soon led to his transfer to that field, where for seven 
years he had charge of the Times' correspondence, — during a period of surpassing political 
and national interest. 

Too independent to be a mere partisan, his letters were nevertheless always earnest, bold, 
and emphatic in support of the opponents of slavery extension during the memorable strug- 
gle attending and succeeding the repeal of "the Missouri Compromise." His Washington 
career was also marked by earnest and incessant war upon the lobby and upon Congressional 
corruption generally. In 1857, one of his letters on this subject led to an investigation by 
the House of Representatives, resulting in a report recommending the expulsion of four 
members) of that body, the evidence against three of them being given by witnesses whom 
Mr. Simonton named to the Committee. 

Having refused to give the names of other members, whose confidential communications 
led him to susppct them of corruption which he had no evidence to prove, Mr. Simonton 
was brought to the bar of the House to answer for contempt. In a personal addre.-<8 to the 
House, he firmly maintained his position, declining to violate the professional confidence 
reposed in him; and for his contumacy was ordered into custody of the Sorgcant-ut-arms, 
where he remained for about three weeks, and was finally discharged without having re- 
sponded to the disputed question. 



426 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

During the recesses of Congress he was usually employed in editorial writing on the 
Times. 

In 1858, when Albert Sydney Johnston's army was sent to Utah, to subject the Mormons 
to Federal authority, Mr. Simonton went with the troops, and spent several months in writ- 
ing up the Mormon question for the New York Times, and also for the London Times. 

In 1859, he returned to San Francisco, where he bought a half interest in the San Fran- 
cisco Bulletin, and became its editor, of which, as also of the San Francisco Morning Call, 
he is still one-third owner. 

At the breaking out of the war he was again at Washington, writing for the Bulletin, and 
the Times ; and since then — with the exception of some fifteen months spent in European 
travel — he has been constantly engaged in the active duties of his profession. 

In the autumn of 1866, Mr. Simonton was suddenly called to the management of the 
Associated Press, the wide-reaching and complicated organization through which the tele- 
graphic news of all the world is collected for and distributed to the Press (with slight excep- 
tions) of the entire United States and of Canada. This responsible position he still holds, 
superintending at the same time the Eastern and European interests of his California news- 
papers, while his partners take care of them on the Pacific. 



The New York Associated Press. 

The Associated Press is simply a partnership for the collection of 
news, and consists of the proprietors of the New York Herald, Tribune, 
Times, World, Journal of Commerce, Sun, and Express. These journalists 
own the Institution, and theoretically control its affairs, though its details, 
in fact, are managed chiefly by its General Agent (or Superintendent) act- 
ing under the immediate direction of an Executive Committee, to whom the 
General Agent appeals for advice when necessary. 

Special agents are appointed in the chief cities of the United States, subject to the General 
Agent, and responsible to him. Besides these, there are hundreds of smaller cities and 
towns where the local press is charged with the duty of acting as agents of the New York 
Association. The duties of these subordinate agents are, first, to collect and forward to the 
general agency the news of their respective localities ; and, second, to receive the tele- 
graphic news supplied by the New York oflBce, and distribute the same to the press of their 
vicinity. 

The Association has its agents also in Europe and China, on the Pacific Coast, in Central 
and South America, the West Indies, and the British Provinces of North America; every- 
where, in fact, whence it is desirable to receive news by telegraph. 

Thus the news of the world is concentrated at New York, primarily for the use of the As- 
sociated Press journals in that city. But the Association, having thus obtained the news, 
supplies it for a per centage of its cost, in such quantities as may be desired, to a vast number 
of journals all over the United States — from Maine on the North Atlantic to Texas on the 
Gulf of Mexico, and to California on the Pacific, and also to the Press of the Canadaa. 

With slight exceptions, the news is all sent to New York first, and thence distributed in 
every direction, according to the wants of each section; the Association agents collecting 
the assessments (generally fixed in amount per week, and graduated according to the im- 
portance of the city or town where used), deducting local expenses therefrom, and remitting 
the balance to the General Agent at New York. 

The chief exception to this plan is that of the Western Associated Press, which collects 
the news of the North-western States, from Ohio to the Missouri river, and delivers the same 
to an agent of the parent institution of New York, located at Cincinnati, Ohio. The Western 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 427 

Association, too, receives the news of the rest of the world at New York, where its own 
reporter condenses the same for transmission to the West. 

The Press of New Enghind, and the Interior Press of New York State, also have their re- 
porters at the Central Agency, to make up and forward the news to their respective em- 
ployers. The California Press have an agent of their own at Chicago, and the Press of the 
South have one at the central point, Washington, to perform similar service for their respec- 
tive sections. • 

By arrangement w^ith the telegraph companies, the distribution of news from New York, 
Wasliington, and Cleveland, is made simultaneously to all points desired to be served in a 
given section. Take the New England service as an illustration. At regular hours, agreed 
upon by contract, a main wire between New York and Boston is put in telegraphic commu- 
nication with every city and town in New England which is entitled to the report ; then, by a 
single manipulation in New York, the same message is sent simultaneously to all of them ; an 
operator at each receiving station taking it ofif for local use. The same plan, substantially, 
is pursued throughout the country. 

All this involves an expenditure of a considerable sum of money. The total disburse- 
ments of the New York Associated Press may be estimated in round numbers at $500,000 per 
annum. The expenditures of the Western Associated Press, probably amount to $150,000 per 
annum more. This, be it remembered, is for the single item of collecting and distributing 
telegraphic news of the Associated Press. All the great dailies of New York, Philadelphia, 
Boston, and the larger cities of the Northwestern States, supplement the Associated news 
with "special" despatches, upon which each journal expends a sum probably much larger 
than its share of Associated Press bills. The charges on such " specials " are settled directly 
between the oflBces using them and the telegraph companies, and therefore do not appear in 
the expenditures of the Association. 

Tlie Associated Press agents are rigidly restricted to reporting simple facts ; always dis- 
tinctly giving as " rumor " anything deemed of sufficient importance to notice at all, unless 
it is well authenticated. Opinions, by telegraph, are religiously tabooed; and the agent who 
ventures to put them upon the wires is sure to repent of his rashness as soon as his superior 
officer has time to communicate with him. The special correspondents — each catering for 
the particular journal to which he is attached — are restricted to no such rule, but travel 
unfettered in the realms of fancj', speculation, and gossip. The total cost of telegrams to a 
leading journal in New York city may be estimated at from $75,000 to $100,000 per annum. 

The Associated Press machinery is necessarily quite complex ; nevertheless, so well organ- 
ized is the system, that, when in competent and trustworthy hands, it works very satisfac- 
torily. Its superintendence requires for success decided executive ability, and much jour- 
nalistic tasle, experience, and tact, coupled with quick perception and great industry. 

The General Agent must be a good judge of news, that he may know how to direct ita 
judicious collection for the innumerable journals of diverse sentiments and wants which 
the Association uudertikes to serve. lie must also be a good business man to manage 
satisfactorily the financial affairs of the Association. Without ready energy and decision, 
he would inevitably become involved and lost in the intricate machinery which he manipu- 
lates, and which frequently must need a prompt and steady hand for its adjustment to new 
conditions and necessities. With these qualities in the General Agent, the Associated Press 
system operates as regularly and smoothly as that of a well-directed post-office department, 
which in some respects it resembles. 

The present General Agent, Mr. J. W. Simonton, is a graduate of the New York Times 
establishment, a journalist of large experience, who has been successful both as an editor 
and a publisher, and is still a stockholder, one-third owner of the Bulletin, the leading paper 
of San Francisco, Cal., and also of the San Francisco Morning Call. 

The American Press have always resisted the establishment of anything akin to the Renter 
system in Europe, which, they claim, leaves journalism more or less at the mercy of a private 
corporation, with whom press service, ou behalf of the general public, is mode secondary 



428 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

to the service of private speculators. In 1866 a former General Agent undertook to convert 
the machinery of the New York Associated Press to his own use, with a view to creating a 
private American corporation similar to Renter's for the collection and distribution of the 
news of the world. So objectionable is that system in the eyes of American newspaper pub- 
lishers, that the Associated Press waged vigorous battle against their former agent, until they 
had beaten him out of the field, at a cost for the war of perhaps $50,000. 



Charles Carleton Coffin. 

Charles Carleto^st Coffin, 1821 , War Correspondent of the 

Boston Journal, has had an experience like that of many of the other most 
vigorous journalists of the day, — having had to work his way up from 
small beginnings, and in the face of many adverse circumstances. 

Mr. CoiBn was born at Boscawen, N. H., the birthplace of the late Senator Fessend en, and 
of Gen. John A. Dix, and within five miles of the birthplace of Daniel Webster. Mr. Coffin 
was a farmer's son, and he remained upon the farm until the age of twenty-one, with very 
limited means of education. After reaching his majority, he contrived to make up in some 
measure for these deficiencies, by studying at night, after the work of the day was over. 

In 1845 he commenced civil engineering, and was engaged for three years in this manner. 
He then purchased a farm, but his health failing he turned his attention to the Fire Alarm 
Telegraph. 

His first attempts at writing were for some of the New Hampshire papers. In 1851 he 
began writing for the Boston press. He gave to his pieces at this time much study and 
labor, not unfrequently rewriting an article ten times, before sending it to the printer. He 
found it difficult, however, to obtain a situation on a newspaper. " Don't want anybody " 
was the stereotyped reply. Determined to become a journalist, he began writing editorials 
and reports for the Boston Journal without pay. After continuing this for three months, 
he was enabled to earn by his services from $10 to $15 a week. From 1855 to 1860, he held 
various positions as reporter and editor on the Journal, Atlas, and Traveller. 

In 1858 he gave to the public his first separate publication, entitled the Great Commercial 
Prize. In 1846, while engaged in civil engineering, and while studying the physical features 
of the continent, he saw that there was but one great river emptying into the Pacific Ocean, 
the Columbia, and that there were but two gateways to the western side of the continent, 
the Bay of San Francisco and Puget Sound. He saw that a great highway must one day span 
the continent between the lakes and the Pacific Ocean. A few years later his convictions 
of the importance of a railway were so great, and the prize to be grasped — the trade of 
Asia — so important, that he advocated through his pen the importance of a railway over 
the route where the Northern Pacific is now being constructed, and he put forth accordingly 
in 1858 the pamphlet already named, urging those views. It fell dead upon the public, and 
the author was laughed at as a visionary enthusiast. 

At the breaking out of the war, Mr. Coffin began a correspondence for the Boston Journal, 
dating his first letter at Baltimore, the first week in June, 1861. He was in the battle of 
Bull Run, at Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, New Madrid, Fort Pillow, and in the gunboat 
fight at Memphis, at Antietam, Fredericksburg, the first attack of the gunboats on Sumter, 
at Gettysburg, and in almost every engagement of the last campaign, from the Wilderness 
to the taking of Richmond. 

In 1862 he puldished My Days and Nights on the Battle-field; in 1863, Following the 
Flag; in 1864, Winning his Way, a story which first appeared in the Young Folks; and in 
1865, Four Years of Fighting. 

In the summer of 1866, upon the breaking out of the war between Prussia and Italy on 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 429 

the one side, and Austriii on the other, he left home for the seat of war at ten days' notice, 
as a correspondent of the Boston Journal. 

The war having ended, he travelled through nearly all the countries of Europe, attended 
the Great E.vpositiou, was present at the coronation of Francis Joseph ad king of Hungary ; 
at the entrance of Victor Kninianuel into Venice; the reception of the Emperor of Russia at 
Berlin, and of the Sultan in Paris and Loudon, and beheld many other pageants; journeyed 
on through Greece. Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, sailing down the Red Sea, across the 
Arabian Gulf to Bombay; travelled through India, China, ascending the Yangtze to the 
heart of the empire ; visited Japan ; sailed thence to San Francisco, and completed the transit 
by stage across the continent, the Pacific Railroad not having been completed. He wa3 
absent two and a half years, and was accompanied by his wife in aU his travels. 

In 18C9 he published Our New Way Round the World. 

During the war and since his return, be has been xipon the platform, lecturing upon 
various themes connected with what he hiis seen. 

Robert Barry Coffin. 

Robert Barry Coffin, 1826 , the author of several popular vol- 
umes, first came into notice as associate editor, with Morris and Willis, of 
the Home Journal. 

Mr. CofBn was born at Hudson, N. Y. His great-grandfather, Alexander CofBn, who died 
in 1839, in the ninety-ninth year of his age, was one of the thirteen original proprietors, 
from the island of Nantucket, who made the settlement of Hudson, in 1783. His father, 
William Henry, was for many years postmaster at Hudson, and died in 1837, leaving a widow 
and five children, of whom Robert B. wa.s the eldest. He received a classical, though not a 
collegiate education. In 1846 he entered an English importing house as a clerk in New 
York city, where he remained several years. In 1852, in connection with a younger brother, 
he opened a bookstore in Elmira, N. Y. His first contributions to the press were in 1845, 
when he wrote a series of sketches for the Rural Repository, a literary weekly published at 
Hudson, since which time he has been a frequent contributor to the magazines and journals 
of the day. In 1858 he was invited by Messrs. Morris & Willis, of the Home Journal, to 
become its associate editor, and removed to New Y'ork. He remained on the Home Journal 
until the autumn of 1862, when he accepted a position in the New York Custom House, in 
which i)Osition he continued through several administrations. Latterly he has been the 
literary editor of the Eastern State Journal, published at White Plains. Westchester County, 
N. Y., and has also renewed his connection, as contributor, with the Home Journal. 

Mr. CoflBn is now residing at Fordham, N. Y., in a small cottage, purchased a few years 
ago, where, in the companionship of his wife and children, and surrounded by books and 
pictures, he leads a quiet, studious life, seldom going to town more than once or twice a 
week. 

His works, published under the name of " Barry Gray," are the following: My Married 
Life at Hillside; Matrimonial Infelicities; Out of Town, a Rural Episode; Cakes and Ale at 
Woodbine; Castles in the Air and other Phantasies; Who is the Heir? Left in the Lurch; 
Ale : in prose and verse, privately printed. Mr. Barry also superintended a new edition of the 
works of Lucretia Maria Davidson, and wrote the introductory Biographical Sketch. 

I3A.\C Prat, 1813 , is a native of Massachusetts. He studied at Harvard and .Amherst. 

He has been editor of several jiapers and magazines, and has contributed largely to others. 
He is also the author of a few dramas and burlesques printed for private circulation, and 
has published two volumes of poems. Two of tlie acts in The Corsicau Brothers are by him. 
In 1855 he published the Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett. 



430 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Curtis Guild. 

CuBTis Guild, 1828 , founder, editor, and proprietor of tlie Boston 

Commercial Bulletin, has a name for wit and spice almost equal to that of 
Prentice of the Louisville Journal. Mr. Guild has published one volume, 
and has contributed a good deal to the magazines. But he is most known 
as a journalist. 

Mr. Guild was born in Eoston. His father was a Boston merchant and a graduate of Ilar- 
vard University. Young Guild was of a literary turn, and designed going through the Univer- 
sity, but owing to financial reverses, such a course was found impossible. He was therefore 
given the best education that could be had at the public schools, with some excellent pri- 
vate instruction, and in 1844, at the age of sixteen, commenced mercantile life in a mer- 
chant's writing-room. 

After three years experience among cotton bales, foreign cargoes, and merchandise, dur- 
ing which time he was frequently a contributor to the papers of the day, he obtained, in 
1847, a position more congenial to his tastes in the Boston Daily Journal newspaper estab- 
lishment. From that time he became a frequent contributor to what were then known as 
the literary papers of the day, as well as to the columns of the paper he was connected with. 

In 1849 Mr. Guild accepted a position in the Boston Daily Traveller, and scon after wrote 
also for some years for various newspapers and magazines, chief among which may be men- 
tioned the New York Knickerbocker from 1850 to '54, then under the conduct of Louis 
Gaylord Clark. 

In 1856 Mr. Guild became one of the proprietors of the Boston Traveller, that journal buy- 
ing out and consolidating into one establishment the Boston Daily Atlas and the Boston 
Chronicle. The financial crisis of 1857-8 was disastrous to the Traveller's plans, and a dis- 
solution of the partnership occurred in the latter year, Mr. Guild disposing of his interest in 
the concern. 

On the 1st of January, 1859, he founded the Boston Commercial Bulletin, starting with 
the intention of what was thought the Quixotic enterprise of making commerce, manufac- 
tures and business, bright and interesting to the general reader. Mr. Guild's enterprise 
was a complete success, and the Bulletin in 1872 is one of the most influential and largely 
circulated papers in the country. As editor-in-chief, Mr. Guild contributed largely to every 
department of the Bulletin, his happiest efiForts, however, being those calling for the exercise 
of desci-iptive power. His sketches are always very popular, and his humorous writings, 
contributed anonymously to a department of the Bulletin known as the Spice of Life, have 
rivalled those of Prentice of the Louisville Journal in popularity. 

In 1867 Mr. Guild made an extended tour in Europe, and contributed a series of sketches 
of the same to his paper, under the title of Over the Ocean. These were received with such 
favor that they were afterwards prepared in a handsome octavo volume and published in 
1871 by Lee & Shepard of Boston. The book was received with still more marked favor, and 
the publishers pronounce it the most popular volume of travels ever issued from their press. 

Mr. Guild is still an industrious writer. His contributions in past years to the magazines 
were both in prose and poetry, but of late years have been chiefly of the former, and of that 
description which skilled journalists find to pay the best. Few practical journalists have 
any ambition to be "the author of a book;" they argue, that, where they reach one reader 
through the pages of a book, they reach twenty in the columns of a newspaper. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 431 

Edward Eggleston. 

Edward Eggleston, D.D., 1837 , lately editor of the New York 

Independent, and now of Hearth and Home, has shown eminent fitness for 
the work of journalism, and has been uniformly successful in his various 
enterprises in that line. 

Dr. Eggleston was born in Vevay, Switzerland County, Ind. He was in feeble health dur- 
ing boyhood, so as to be able to attend school very little, and that at irregular intervals. He 
has not had the opportunity of a college education, but has managed in various ways to pick 
up an acquaintance with the Latin and Greek, and with several modern languages (French, 
Spanish, and Italian). He has given much time to the reading and study of the English 
classics, which he considers the best part of his education. He entered the ministry of the 
Methodist Chnrch in his nineteenth year, and preached for ten years in Minnesota, at St. 
Paul, Stillwater, and Winona. 

He went to Chicago in 1866, as associate editor of the Little Corporal, and in 1867 began to 
edit the Sunday-School Teacher, the circulation of which, under his mauiigement, rose in 
three years from 5,000 to 20,000. 

In 1870, he went to New York as literary editor of the New York Independent, and he 
was for a time the superintending editor of that important paper. He has since become 
editor of Hearth and Home. 

Dr. Eggleston's labors, both with his pen and his tongue, have been mainly in the line of 
Sunday-Schools, and few men living have given more effective aid than he to this great 
cause. In a Sunday-School Institute, or in a Convention, he has no superior, either as a 
lecturer or as a conductor. 

His published works are the following: Sunday-School Conventions and Institutes; 
Sunday -School Manual ; Mr. Blake's Walking Stick, a Christmas Story for Boys and Girls ; 
The Book of Queer Stories. All these books have been popular, and have sold largely. Of 
his short stories published in Scribner's Monthly, the editor of that magazine says : "They 
have been more widely copied than any recent short stories, except Bret Harte's." 

Samuel Irenaeus Prime. 

Samuel Iren^us Prime, D. D., 1812 , is the author of several in- 
teresting volumes, but is chiefly known by his writings and labors for the 
past thirty-two years as editor of the New York Observer. 

Dr. Prime was born at Ballston, N. Y., a son of N. S. Prime, and graduated at Williams, 
Mass., in the class of 1829. He studied theology at Princeton, preached for a time at Ballston 
Spa, and elsewhere, but was obliged to retire from ministerial labor on account of the loss 
of health. In 1840, he became connected with the New York Observer, and he has remained 
in that connection ever since. 

Besides his editorial writings and labors. Dr. Prime has published a considerable number 
of separate volumes : The Old White Meeting-House, or Reminiscences of a Country Congre- 
gation ; Life in New York ; Annals of the English Bible, an abridgment and continuation of 
Anderson; Thoughts on the Death of Little Children; Travels in Europe and the East; 
Letters from Switzerland; Memoirs of Rev. Nicholas xMurray; The Bible in the Levant, or 
The Life and Letters of the Rev. C. N. Righter; The Power of Prayer, being a History of 
the Noon-day Prayer Meeting; Five Years of Prayer, with the Answers, being a continua- 
tion of the previous work. 

Dr. Prime's Letters to the Observer are usually signed Irenseua. 



432 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Prime has a son, Rev. "Wendell Prime, a Presbyterian minister in Newburgh, who has 
the same Greek Testament that his father had, and his grandfather, and his great-grand- 
father, and his greaf-gre.at-grandt'a.ther : the five generations being classically educated men, 
and all but one (B. Y. P.) being Presbyterian ministers. 

Edward Dorr Griffin Prime, 1814 , also a son of N. S. Prime, was born at Cambridge. 

N. Y., and graduated at Union College, in 1832. He studied theology at Princeton, was Ameri- 
can Chaplain at Rome in 1855, and has been for some years one of the editors of the New 
York Observer. He has written Letters for the Observer, under the signature of Eusebius. 
In 1869-70, he made a journey around the world, an account of which was published in 
1872, in one volume 8vo. 

William Cowper Prime, 1825 , also a son of N. S. Prime, was born at Cambridge, N. Y., 

and graduated at Princeton, in the class of 1813. He is a lawyer by profession, but finds 
time for travel and for literature. He has published Owl Creek Letters ; The Old House by 
the River; Later Years; Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia; Tent Life in the Holy Land; Coins, 
Medals, and Seals, Ancient and Modern ; Oh, Mother Dear, Jerusalem, The Old Hymn, its 
Origin and Genealogy, etc. 

Theodore Tilton. 

Theodore Tilton, 1835 , is the author of several volumes which 

have commanded attention. His chief work, however, thus far, has been in 
the line of journalism, for many years in the New York Independent, and 
now in his own paper, The Golden Age. 

Mr. Tilton was born in the city of New York, and graduated at Yale. He was connected 
with the Independent from 1856 to 1871, and during the latter part of that time was its 
editor. In 1871 he began an enterprise of his own. The Golden Age. 

Mr. Tilton has published the following works : The American Board and American Sla- 
very; Memorial of Mrs. Browning; The Fly; Golden-haired Gertrude; The Two Hungry 
Kittens ; The King's Ring ; The True Church ; The Sexton's Tale and Other Poems. 

Mrs. Swisshelm. 

Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm, 1815 , has been the most energetic and the 

most successful of those of her sex who have undertaken the hazardous ex- 
periment of journalism. The story of her struggles and of her resolution 
in the face of dangers borders often upon the marvellous. 

Mrs. Swisshelm was born in Pittsburg, the daughter of Mr. Thomas Cannon. Both father 
and mother were Scotch-Irish, and Covenanters, and in the Covenanting Church Jane was 
brought up. 

In 1836, she was married to Mr. Swisshelm, a Methodist. After marriage, Mr. Swisshelm, 
believing the husband to be the " head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church," 
insisted that Jane should give up her Calvinistic notions, go to camp-meeting, and "preach." 
Jane, believing that the Bible enjoined on all women silence in public, kept it. But the 
command, "Open thy mouth to the dumb," had no mark of being exclusively addressed to 
women, so she concluded to speak through the press. 

In 1845 she began writing for The Spirit of Liberty. In 1816-47, she wrote a series 
of articles for that paper, and for the Pittsburg Commercial Journal, on the Property 
Rights of Married Women. These articles are believed to have been mainly instrumental 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 433 

in leiiding the Pennsylvania Legislature, at the session of 1847-48, to pass its first law grant- 
ing to married women the right to hold property. Edwin M. Stanton, then a lawyer in 
Steubenville, called on her, after the passage of the law, and congratulated her on the suc- 
cess of "her" measure. 

In 1844,'' -^/-le, Mrs. Swisshelni wrote occasional articles for Neal's Gazette and The Dollar 
Ne\vspai)er, under the name of Jeaniiie Deans, which were well received. 

But the Covenanting blood in her veins beat to more stirring themes ; and when the Mexi- 
can war broke out, she wrote for the CJommercial Journal of Pittsburg a series of articles 
in opposition to the war, which created a perfect storm. 

At the close of the Mexican war she began The Pittsburg Saturday Visitor, on her own 
account, in December, 1S47, and continued to edit and publish it until 1851, when it was sold, 
and merged in The Family Journal and Visitor. 

In the winter of 1849-50, she spent some weeks in Washington, D. C, as a correspondent for 
the New York Tribune, as well as for her own paper. Here her indignation was roused at 
what she considered Daniel Webster's treason against liljerty ; and to weaken the influence 
of his great name, siie published an account of his private life, which raised a furious tem- 
pest. But believing that her statements were true and capable of proof, and that their pub- 
lication was necessary for the protection of the oppressed, she boldly held her ground, and 
was afterwards publicly congratulated with having "killed off Daniel Webster" as a Presi- 
dential candidate. 

Mrs. Swisshelm was the first to suggest and urge, through the Tribune, the establishment 
of a Court of Claims, a measure which has since become a law. 

Her only book is a series of Letters to Country Girls, which appeared first in The Visitor, 
and were afterwards published in book form. 

In 1857, Mrs. Swisshelm went to St. Cloud, Minn., to reside with her brother-in-law. Gen. 
H. Z. Mitchell. Here she was induced to start a newspaper, " The St. Cloud Visitor." The 
paper gave offence to one of the leading proprietors of the town, who, with some confeder- 
ates, broke into the office at night, destroyed the press and scattered the type, and left on 
the table a letter threatening personal violence if she persisted. She did persist, and tri- 
umphed, but through agony worthy of a Cameronian. Her paper, its name changed, became 
the leading organ of Minnesota politics, and contributed largely towards giving to that 
State its political character. 

During the war, Mrs. Swisshelm was employed in the Quartermaster's department at 
Washington, but was dismissed by President Johnson for disrespectful language towards 
him in The Reconstructionist, a weekly paper which she started in Washington. Since that 
time, she has lived in the vicinity of Pittsburg. 

When her life was threatened by the mob, at the time of breaking up her press in Min- 
nesota, Mrs. Swisshelm felt that the mouth of the dumb was at length opened ; she harangued 
them openly and defiantly, and since that time has done much in the way of public lectur- 
ing, chiefly on political topics. 

Though an early and persistent advocate of justice to her sex, she has always stood aloof 
from what is known as the Women's Rights movement, believing it to be unwise, and likely, 
by its extravagant demands, to put back immediate practicable reforms. She was very 
earnest in deuouucing the Bloomer costume. 



V. THE HUMORISTS. 

C. F. Browne, — "Artemus Ward." 

Charles Foster Browne, 1836-1867, became widely known, both in 
England and America, by his humorous conception of Artemus Ward, ** the 
37 2 



434 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

genial showman." So complete was his conception of this character, and 
his representation of it in his writings, that it has become difficult for the 
public to realize that Artemus Ward was not a real, historical personage, 
or that there was behind liim any such being as the writer, Mr. C. F. Browne. 
Artemus Ward is to us the living man, Mr, Browne the myth. This species 
of writing does not belong to the highest kind of art. Yet there is in it a 
peculiar dramatic power, as clearly creative as anything in Shakespeare. 

Mr. Browne was, like so many of the present day, a creation of the newspaper office. He 
was born in Waterford, Me., and passed from the common school into the printing-office. 
After working in various places he settled for a while in Boston, where he set type and began 
to write comic sketches. He left Boston, however, for Toledo, 0., where he became local 
editor, and from Toledo went to Cleveland. 

It was at Cleveland, in the office of the Plaindetiler, that his fame chiefly was made. His 
series of letters from "-Artemus "STard, showman," giving absurd descriptions of the remark- 
able animals in this imaginary travelling menagerie, and interspersed with keen witticisms, 
sly hits, and shrewd plays of humor, attracted general attention. 

About the breaking out of the war, he became a contributor to Tanity Fair, and soon after 
began his celebrated course of lectures. 

In 1863 he visited California, taking the Overland route and lecturing at Salt Lake City. 
In 1864, upon his return to the Ea^t, he lectured with great success upon California and the 
- Mormons. 

In 1866 he visited England, where he contributed a number of sketches to Punch, and 
lectured in London, at the Egyptian Hall. The following year, when about to embark for 
home, he died of consumption, in the thirty-second year of his age. 

Mr. Browne's death left a void in American letters. He had endeared himself to many 
friends by his genial social qualities, and to the great Americiin public by an unfailing flow 
of rich humor. 

Of all American humorists, Artemus "U'ard is the best. His lectures and sketches are rarely 
weak, and never vulgar — a trait which many of his imitators would do well to heed more 
closely. His purposely grotesque spelling heightens the effect of his sayings, but is not 
essential to them. Any one of his compositions could be set up in the ordinary style and 
not miss its mark. 

His works have been collected into the following volumes: Artemus Ward, his Book; 
Artemus Ward, his Panorama; Artemus Ward among the Mormons ; Artemus Ward among 
the fenians; Artemus Ward in Loudon. The work entitled Artemus Ward in England was 
published after his death, and contains an entertaining biographical sketch. 

When we review these volumes, we are struck with the number of sayings and turns of 
thought that have already become the common property of the author's countrymen at 
large. Many of the sketches, written when the war was at its height, express in the most 
humorous way the nation's trials and perplexities. The satire is not biting, the humor is 
very genial, and there is below all a substratum of shrewd American sense and philosophy 
that give to Artemus Ward's essays a permanent value. How exquisitely has the Showman 
hit off the confused and jarring notions of the average American upon the great emancipa- 
tion question by those celebrated essays on the negro! How true the satire in the descrip- 
tion of the self-sacrificing i)atriot who sends all his wife's and all his own relatives to the war! 

Artemus was perhaps less successful as an actual lecturer than as a writer of imaginary 
lectures and sketches. His delivery was monotonous, and the audience had to rely for their 
entertainment solely upon the substance of the discourse, the absurdly novel treatment of 
the subject, the unexpected turns and twists of thought that upset all tlieir calculations. 

Mauy of the genial Showman's most genial sayings were wholly impromptu. One of the 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 435 

most famous was the answer he returned to an invitation to lecture in California. A well- 
known theatre manager in San Francisco, having heard of tlie rising young lecturer, decided 
to engage him for a course of lectures. As the season was almost at hand, and uo time to he 
lost, he telegraphed from San Francisco to Artemus in New York, the message, "What will 
you take for forty nights in California? Answer immediately." To this unexpected in- 
vitation Artemus sent, also by telegraph and with equal gravity, the now famous reply: 
"Brandy and Water! " The joke was immediately noised throughout all California, so that 
when Artemus did subsequently visit the State, lecturing on his own account, he found his 
fame already secured. 

Mr. Brown has left us no humorous creations except that of the inimitable "genial show- 
man." It would be idle, of course, to speculate at length upon what he might have achieved 
had his life not been cut so suddenly short. But the chances were that he would have 
produced other character-creations worthy to be placed by the side of Artemus, and those 
of the great English humorists. 

ONE OF MR. WARDS BUSINESS LETTERS. 

To the Editor of the : 

Sir — I'm movin along — slowly along — down tords your place I want you should rite 
me a letter, .sayin how is the show bizness in your place. My show at present consists of 
three moral Bares, a Kangaroo (a amoozin little Raskal — 'twould make you larf yerself to 
deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal), wax figgers of G. Washington, Gen. Taj'lor, 
John Bunyan, Capt Kidd, and Dr. Webster in the act of killin Dr. Parkman, besiiles several 
miscellanyus wax statoos of celebrated piruts and murderers, etc., ekalled by few and ex- 
celd by none. Now Mr. Editor, scratch orf a few lines sayin how is the show bizness down 
to your place. I shall hav my hanbills dun at your oflRss. Depend upon it, I want you should 
git my hanbills up in flumin stile. Also git up a tremenjus excitement in yr. paper 'bowt 
my onparaleld Show. We must fetch the public sumhow. We must wurk on their feelins. 
Cum the moral on 'em strong. If it's a temprance community, tell 'em I sined the pledge 
fifteen minits arter Ise born, but ou the contery, ef your peple take their tods, say Mister 
Ward is as Jenial a feller as we ever met, full of conwiviality, and the life an sole of the 
Soshul Bored. Take, don't you? If you say any thin abowt my show say my snaiks is as 
harmliss as a new-born Babe. What an interestin study it is to see a zewological animil 
like a snaik under perfeck sulyecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable little cuss I ever 
saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer your infloounce. I repeet in regard to them 
hanbills that I shall git 'em struck orf up to your printin office. My perlitercal sentiments 
agree with yourn exackly. I know they do, becawz I never saw a man whoose didn't. 

Respectively yures, 

A. W.\RD. 

P. S. You scratch my back and lie scratch your back. 

AT THE TOMB OF SHAKSPEARE. 

Mr. PuN'cn, Mt De.\r Sir, — I've been lingerin by the tomb of the lamentid Shakspeare. 

It is a success. 

I do not hes'tate to pronounce it as such. 

You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will 
subswerve the cause of litteratoor, you may publicate it. 

I told my wife Betsy when I left home that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur of 
Othelhr and other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn't care wliere 
I went. " But," I said, " don't you know he was the greatest Poit that ever livetl ? Not one 
of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, abowt the 
Roses as growses and the Breezes as blowses — but a Boss Poit — also a philospher, also u 
man who knew a great deal about everything. 

She was packing my things at the time, and the only answor she made wua to ask mo if 
I was uoiu to carry both of my red flannel uiijlit-caps. 



436 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Yes. I've been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birthplace of Shakspeare. Mr. S. is now 
no more. He's been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are 
justly proud of him. They cherish his mem'ry, and them as sell picturs of his birthplace, 
etc., makeit prof 'tiblecherishinit. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom. 

As I stood gazing on the spot where Shakspeare is s'posed to have fell down on the ice 
and hurt hisself when a boy (this spot cannot be bought, — the town authorities say it shall 
never be taken from Stratford,) I wondered if three hundred years hence picturs of my birth- 
place will be in demand ? 'Will the peple of my native town be proud of me three hundred 
years? I guess they won't short of that time, because they say the fat man weighing 1000 
pounds which I exhibited there was stuffed out with pillers and cushions, Avhich he said 
one very hot day in Jul}', "Oh bother, I can't stand this," and commenced pullin the pilhrs 
out from under his weskit, and heavin 'em at the audience. I never saw a man lose flesh 
so fast in my life. The audience said I was a pretty man to come chiselin my own towns- 
men in that way. I said, " Do not be angry, feller-citizens. I exhibited him simply as a 
work of art. I simply wished to show you that a man could grow fat without the aid of cod- 
liver oil." But they wouldn't listen to me. They are a low and grovelin set of peple, 
who excite a feelin of loathin in every brest where lorfty emotions and original idees have 
abidin place. 

I stopped at Leamington a few minits on my way to Stratford onto the Avon, and a very 
beautiful town it is. I went into a shoe shop to make a purchis, and as I entered I saw over 
the door those dear familiar words, "By Appintment: H. R. H. ; " and I said to the man, 
" Squire, excuse me, but this is too much. I have seen in London four hundred boot and shoe 
shops by appintment: H. R. H.; and now you're at it. It is simply onpossible that the 
Prince can wear 400 pair of boots. Don't tell me," I said in a voice choked with emotion — 
*'oh, do not tell that you also make boots for him. Say slippers — saj' that you mend a 
boot now and then for him ; but do not tell that you make 'em reg'lar for him." 

The man smilt, and said I didn't understand these things. He said I perhaps had not 
noticed in London that dealers in all sorts of articles was By Appintment. I said, " 0. hadn't 
I?" Then a sudden thought flasht over me. "I have it!" I said; " when the Prince 
walks through a street he no doubt looks at the shop-windows." 

The man said, " No doubt." 

" And the enterprisin tradesman," I continnerd, " the moment the Prince gets out of sight, 
rushes frantically and has a tin sign painted, By Appintment, H. R. H. ! It is a beautiful, a 
great idee ! " 

I then bought a pair of shoe-strings, and wringin the shopman's honest hand, I started 
for the Tomb of Shakspeare in a hired fly. It lookt, however, more like a spider. 

"And this," I said, as I stood in the old church-yard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, 
"this marks the spot where lies William Shakspeare. Alars! and this is the spot 
where -^ " 

" You've got the wrong grave," said a man — a worthy villager : " Shakspeare is buried 
inside the church." 

" Oh," I said, "a boy told me this Avas it." The boy larfed and put the shillin I'd given 
him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards 
the street. 

I pursood and captered him, and after talking to him a spell in a skarcastic stile, I let 
him went. 

The old church was damp and chill. It was rainin. The only person there when I en- 
tered was a fine, bluff old gentleman who was talking in a excited manner to a fashnibly- 
dressed young man. " No, Ernest Moutresser," the old gentleman said, "it is idle to pursoo 
this subjeck further. You can never marry my daughter. You were seen last Monday 
in Piccadilly without a umbreller! I said then, as I say now, any young man as venturs 
out in a uncertain climit like this without a umbreller, lacks foresight, caution, strength 
of mind, and stability ; and he is not a proper person to intrust a daughter's happiness to." 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 437 

I slapt the old gentleman on the shoulder, and T said, " You 'ro right ! You 'ro one of 
those kind of men. j'ou are — " 

He wheeled suddenly ix>und, and in a indignant voice, said, "Go way — go way ! This 
is a privit intervoo." 

I did n't stop to enrich the old gentleman's mind with my conversation. I sort of inferred 
that he was n't inclined to listen to me, and so I went on. But he was right about the uin- 
breller. I'm really delighted with this grand old country, Mr. Punch, but you must admit 
that it does rain rayther numerously here. Whether this is owing to a monerkal form of 
gov'ment or not, I leave all candid and onprejudiced persons to say. 

William Shakspeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentaters, Shaksperian 
scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in 
regard to him, except that his mantle hasn't fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough 
to hurt said poet or dramatist miuh. And there is no doubt if those commentaters and per- 
sons continner investigatin Shakspeare's career, we shall not, in doc time, know anything 
about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammer School, because, as 
he said, the Grammer School would n't attend him. This remarkable remark, coming from 
one so young and inexperuhced, set peple to thinkin there might be somethin in the lad. 
He subsequently wrote Hamlet and George Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to Lon- 
don to accept a position in the office of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen 
by his fellow-pupils to deliver a farewell address. " Go on. Sir," he said, " in a glorus career. 
Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be gratified ! That 's so." 

My young readers, who Avish to know about Shakspeare, better get these vallyable remarks 
framed. 

I returned to the hotel, Meetin a young married couple, they asked me if I could direct 
them to the hotel which Washington Irving used to keep? 

" I 've understood that he was onsuccessful as a lan'lord," said the lady. 

"We've understood," said the young man, "that he busted up." 

I told 'em I was a stranger, and hurried away. They were from my country, and ondoubt- 
edly represented a thrifty He Well somewhere in Pennsylvany. It's a common thing, by 
the way, for a old farmer in Pennsylvany to wake up some momin and find ile squirtin all 
around his back yard. He sells out for 'normous price, and his children put on gorgeous 
harness and start on a tower to astonish peple. They succeed in doiu it. Meanwhile the ile 
it quirts and squirts, and Time rolls on. Let it roll, 

A very nice old town is Stratford, and a capital inn is the Red Horse. Every admirer of 
the great S. must go there once certinly ; and to say one is n't a admirer of him, is equv'lent 
to sayin one has jest about brains enough to become a eflBcient tinker. 

Some kind person has sent me Chawcer's poems. Mr. C, had talent, but he couldn't spel. 
No man has a right to be a lit'rary man onless ho knows how to spel. It is a pity that 
Chawcer, who had gcneyus, was so unedicated. He's the wuss speller I know of. 

I guess I 'm throujrh, and so I lay down my pen, which is more mightier than the sword, 
but which I 'm afraid would stand a rayiher slim chance beside the needle-gun, 

Adoo! adoo! 

Artemcs W.UID, 

S, L, Clemens, — '^ Mark T^A^ain." 

iSAMUEL Langhorne Clemens, 1835 , who writes under the name 

of " Mark Twain," set the wliole continent in a roar by his vohime, The 
Innocents Abroad, giving a humorous description of a visit to the old world 
by a ship-load of American excursionists. 

Mr. Clemens was born in the village of Florida, Monroe County, Mo. His father tailed in 
37* 



438 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

business, and died, leaving liim the ample world to seek his fortune in, with a slender educa- 
tion and a slenderer moneyed capital to worlc with. He was immediately apprenticed to a 
printer (age thirteen at this time), and served several years at that occupation. 

At tlie age of sixteen he worked his way over most of the Eastern States, to see somewhat 
of the world, and returned to the West at the age of eighteen, and became a steamboat pilot 
on the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans. (Hence his nom deplume, — it means two 
fathoms.) 

His brother having been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory, Mr. Clemens wont to 
that country with him for the sake of the trip, became fascinated with silver-mining and 
the wild life there, and remained. He roved about the deserts and mountains for a year, 
making and losing one or two trifling fortunes, and finally being out of money and out of 
credit, accepted a reporter's berth on the daily Territorial Enterprise, and blossomed into a 
literary man. 

After serving on the paper three years, he went to San Francisco, and reported on news- 
papers there during a year or more ; and also began to create a local notoriety for his newly- 
chosen nom de plume of " Mark Twain." Then he was employed to go down to the Sand- 
wich Islands, and write about the sugar interest for the Sacramento Union ; returned at the 
end of six months and found himself famous in a small way ; turned the notoriety to ac- 
count by delivering lectures, and acquiring much money. 

He returned East in the Spring of 1867, and published The Celebrated Jumping Frog and 
Other Sketches, 200 pp. 12mo, a book which sold fairly in America and very largely in 
England. 

In the summer of 1867, he joined the Quaker City European and Holy Land Pleasure Ex- 
cursion, was gone six months, came back and went to California to lecture. Having written 
Tlie Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim's Progress, he came East and published it in the 
fall of 1869 — 650 pages 8vo, illustrated — republished in England. The sale in America 
had reached in the first two years 110,000 copies. He has in press a volume of Nevada and 
Californian Experiences, of the same size and style as Innocents Abroad, and illustrated in 
the same manner. 

GROWING MONOTONOUS. 

" Butchered to make a Roman holj'day," sounds well for the first seventeen or eighteen 
hundred thousand times one sees it in print, but after that it begins to grow tiresome. I 
find it in all the books concerning Rome — and here latterly it reminds me of Judge Oliver. 
Oliver was a young lawyer, fresh from the schools, who had gone out to the deserts of Ne- 
vada to begin life. He found that country, and our ways of life there, in those early days, 
diff"erent from life iu ITew England or Paris. But he put on a woollen shirt and strapped a 
navy revolver to his person, took to the bacon and beans of the country, and determined to 
do in Nevada as Nevada did. Oliver accepted the situation so completely, that although he 
must have sorrowed over many of his trials, he never complained — that is, he never com- 
plained but once. He, two others, and myself, started to the new silver mines in the Hum- 
boldt Mountains — he to be Probate Judge of Humboldt County, and we to mine. The distance 
was two hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought a two-horse wagon and put 
eighteen hundred pounds of bacon, flour, beans, blasting-powder, picks and shovels in it; we 
bought two sorry-looking Mexican " Plugs," with the hair turned the wrong way, and more 
corners on their bodies than there are on the Mosque of Omar; we hitched up and started. 
It was a dreadful trip. But Oliver did not complain. The horses dragged the wagon two 
miles from town and then gave ojit. Then we three pushed the wagon seven miles, and 
Oliver moved ahead and pulled the horses after him by the bits. We complained, but Oliver 
did not. The ground was frozen, and it froze our backs while we slept; the wind swei)t 
across our faces and froze our noses. Oliver did not complain. Five days of pushing the 
wagon by day and freezing by night brought us to the bad part of the journey — the Forty 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 439 

Mile Desert, or tlie Groat American Desert, if you please. Still this mildest-mannered 
man that over was, had not complained. We started across at eight in the mominp;, 
imsliing through sand that had uo bottom; toiling all loTig by the wrecks of a thousand 
Avagons, the skeletons often thousand oxen ; by wagon-tires enough to honp the Washington 
Monument to tlie top, and ox-chains enough to girdle Long Island; by human graves; with 
our throats parched always with thirst; lips bleeding from the alkali dust; hungry, perspir- 
ing, and very, very weary — so weary that when we dropped in the sand every fifty yards to 
rest the horses we could hardly keep from going to sleep — no complaints from Oliver; none 
the next morning at three o'clock, when we got across, tired to death. Awakened two or 
three nights afterward at midnight, in a narrow canon, by the snow falling on our faces, 
and appalled at the imminent danger of being "snowed in,"' we harnessed up and pushed oa 
till eight in the morning, passed the '"Divide," and knew we were saved. No complaints. 
Fifteen daj's of hardsliip and fatigue brought as to the end of the two hundred miles, and 
the Judge had not complained. We wondered if anything could exasperate him. We built 
H Humboldt house. It is done in this way. You dig a square in the steep base of the moun- 
tain, and set up two uprights and top them with two joists. Then you stretch a grevt sheet 
of "cotton domestic" from the point where the joists jom the hill-side down over the joists 
to the ground ; this makes the roof and the front of the mansion ; the sides and back are 
the dirt-walls your digging has left. A chimney is easily made by turning up one comer of 
the roof. Oliver w;i3 sitting alone in this dismal den one night, by a sage-brush fire, writing 
poetry. He was very fond of digging poetry out of himself — or blasting it oat when it 
came hard. He grew uneasy and said, ''Hi! — clear out from there, can't you!" — from 
time to time, But by and by he fell asleep where he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell down 
the chimney! The fire flew in every direction, and Oliver went over backwards. About ten 
nights after that he recovered confidence enough to go to writing poetry again. Again he 
dozed off to sleep,and again a mule fell down the chimney. This time about half of the side of 
the house came in with the mule. Strnggling to get up, the mule kicked the candle out and 
smashed most of the kitchen furniture, and raised considerable dust. These violent awaken- 
ings must have been annoying to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved to a mansion 
on the opposite side of the canon, because he had noticed that the mule-s did not go there. 
One night, about eight o'clock, he was endeavoring to finish his poem, when a stone rolled in 
— then a hoof appeared l>€low the canviis — then part of a cow — the after part. He leaned 
back in dread, and shouted " Hooy ! hooy ! get out of this!" and the cow straggled man- 
fully — lost ground steadily — dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver could get 
well away, the entire cow crashed through on to the table, and made a shapeless wreck of 
everything ! 

Then, for the first time in his life, I think, Oliver complained. He said, 

" This t}ti»g is growing mmiotorwus ! " 

Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt Ck)unty. " Butchered to make a Roman 
holyday," has grown monotonous to me. 

GUIDES. 

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter concerning those necessary nuisances, Eu- 
ropean guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he could do without his guide; but 
knowing he could not, has wished he could get some amusement out of him as a remunera- 
tion for the affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if our experi- 
ence can be made useful to others, they are welcome to it. 

Guides know al>out enough English to tangle everything up so that a man can mako 
neither head nor tail of it. They know their story by he^irt — the history of every statue, 
painting, cathedral or other wonder they show you. They know it and tell it as a parrot 
would — and if you interrupt, anil throw them off the track, they have to go back and liegin 
over again. All their lives long they are employed in showing strangp things to foreigners 



440 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and listening to their bursts of admiration. It is what prompts children to say " smart " 
things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is present. It is 
what makes gossips turn out in raiu and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling piece 
of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every 
day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies of admiration ! He 
gets so that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer atmosphere. After we Dis- 
covered this, we nevr went into ecstasies any more — we never admired any thing — we 
never showed any but impassible faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the sub- 
limest wonders a guide had to display. We had found their weak point. We have made 
some good use of it ever since. We have made some of those people savage,at times, but we 
have never lost our own serenity. 

The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his countenance, and look 
more like an inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice, than any 
man that lives. It comes natural to him. 

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American party, because Americans so 
much wonder, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of Columbus. 
Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of 
animation — full of impatience. He said : 

"Come wis me, genteelmen! — come! I show you ze letter- writing by Christopher Co- 
lombo! — write it himself! — write it wis his own hand! — come!" 

He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and open- 
ing of locks, th3 stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide's eyes sparkled. 
He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger : 

" What I tell you, genteelmen 1 Is it not so ? See ! band-writing Christopher Colombo ! — 
write it himself! " 

"\A'e looked indifferent — unconcerned. The doctor examined the dociunent very deliber- 
ately, during a painful pause. Then he said, without any show of interest : 

"Ah — Ferguson — what — what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?" 

" Christopher Colombo ! ze great Christopher Colombo ! " 

Another deliberate examination. 

"Ah — did he write it himself, or — or how ? " 

" He write it himself! — Christopher Colombo ! hes own hand-writing, write by himself! " 

Then the doctor laid the document down and said : 

" Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than 
that." 

"But zis is ze great Christo — " 

" I don't care who it is ! Tfc 's the worst writing I ever saw. Now you must n't think you 
can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, hy a great deal. If you have got 
any specinitns of penmanship of real merit, trot them out! — and if you have n't, drive on ! " 

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, biit he made one more venture. He 
had something wliich he thought would overcome us. He said: 

" Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me ! I show yon beautiful, oh, magnificent bust of Chris- 
topher Colombo! — splendid, grand, magnificent!" 

He brought us before the beautiful bust — for it was beautiful — and sprang back and 
struck an attitude: 

"Ah, look, genteelmen! — beatitiful, grand, — bust Christopher Colombo! — beautiful 
bust, beautiful pedestal ! " 

The doctor put up his eye-glass — procured for such occasions: 

"Ah — what did you say this gentleman's name was? " 

" Christopher Colombo ! — ze great Christo|)her Colombo ! " 

" Christojiher Colombo — the great Chrii<topher Colombo. Well, what did ^ do ? " 

" Discover America ! — discover America. Oh. ze devil ! " 

"Discover America! No — that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 441 

ourselves. "We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo — pleasant name. Is — is 
he dead ? " 

" Oh, corpo di Raccho ! — three hundred year ! " 

"What did lie die of! " 

" I do not know ! — I cannot tell." 

"Small-pox, think?" 

" I do not know, genteelmen ! — I do not know what he die of! " 

"Measles, likely?" 

" May be — may be — I do not know — I think he die of aomethings." 

"Parents living? " 

" Imposseeble! " 

" Ah —which is the bust and which is the pedestal ? " 

" Santa Maria ! — zis ze bust ! — zis ze pedestal ! " 

"Ah, I see, I see — happy combination — very happy combination, indeed. Is — is this 
the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust? ". 

That joke was lost on the foreigner — guides cannot master the subtilties of the Ameri- 
can joke. 

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four 
hours in the Vatican, again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near ex- 
pressing interest, sometimes — even admiration — it was very hard to keep from it. We 
succeeded though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered 
— non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and ex- 
hausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in any 
thing. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last — a royal 
Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so 
sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him: 

" See, genteelmen ! — Mummy ! Mummy ! " 

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever. 

" Ah — Ferguson — what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was ? " 

" Name ? — he got no name ! — Mummy — 'Gyptian mummy ! " 

" Yes, yes. Born here ? " 

"No! 'Gyptian mummy!" 

" Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume ? " 

"No! — Mo< Frenchman, not Roman! born in Egyptal" 

" Bom in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy — 
mummy. How calm he is — how self-possessed. Is, ah — is he dead? " 

"Oh, sacre bleu, has been dead three thousan' year ! " 

The doctor turned on him savagely : 

" Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this ! Playing us for Cliinamen bo- 
cause we are strangers and trying to learn ! Trying to impose your vile second-hand car- 
casses on us! — thunder and lightning, I 've a notion to — to — If you 've got a nice /re«A 
corpse, fetch him out ! — or, by George, wo "11 brain you ! " 

THE TOMB OF ADAM. 

The greatest proof [that this column marks the centre of the earth] lies in the fact that 
from under this very column was taken the dust from which Adam was made. This can 
surely be regarded in the liglit of a settler. It is not likely that the original man would 
have been made from an inferior quality of earth when it was entirely convi-nii-nt to get 
first quality from the world's centre. This will strike any reflective mind forcibly. Tliat 
Adam was formed of dirt procured in this very spot is anjply proven by the fact that, in six 
thousand ye.-xrs, no man has over been able to prove that the dirt was twt procured here 
whereof he was made. 



442 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

It is a singular circumstance that right under the roof of tliis same great church, and not 
faraway from that illustrious column, Adam himself, the father of the human race, lies 
buried. There is uo question that he is actually buried in the grave which is pointed out 
as his — there can be none — because it has never yet been proven that that grave is not the 
grave in which he is buried. 

The tomb of Adam ! How touching it was, here in the land of strangers, far away from 
home, and friends, and all who cared for me, thus to discover the grave of a blood relation. 
True, a distant one, but still a relation. The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its recog- 
nition. The fountain of my filial affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, and I gave 
Way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst into tears. I deem it no 
shame to have wept over the grave of my poor dear relative. Let him who would sneer at 
my emotion close this volume here. He will find little to his taste in my journeyings 
through Holy Land. Noble old man — he did not live to see me — he did not live to see his 
child. And I — I — alas, I did not live to see 1dm. Weighed down by sorrow and disap- 
pointment, he died before I was born — six thousand brief summers before I was born. But 
let me try to bear it with fortitude. Let me trust that he is better off where he is. Let lis 
take comfort in the thought that his loss is our eternal gain, 

C. H. Webb, — ''John Paul." 

Charles Henry Webb, 1835 , a humorist, better known as "John 

Paul," has written a number of amusing sketches and travesties, which 
have been very successful. The following clever travesty of himself, writ- 
ten for this volume, gives a good idea both of the man and of his style. 

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BY JOHN PAUL. 

I was bom at Rouse's Point, a little village in the State of New York, standing at the 
northern extremity of Lake Champlain. There were excellent schools, both private and 
public, in the vicinity, and it was the intention of my parents to fit me for college, my 
mother especially being firmly persuaded that I was destined to become an eminent mission- 
ary. I did not object to being a missionary, inasmuch as this seemed to promise a wild life in 
primitive forests, gathering cocoanuts and chasing monkeys and green parrots. But, on the 
whole, I preferred to be a groat Western trapper; and I devoted myself to preparatory studies 
and pursuits to that purpose with such effect, that I soon became famous as the best squirrel- 
shot and bull-trout catcher in town. 

When little more than twelve years of age, my father thought he would steady and utilize 
me a little by giving me an idea of business, and he sent me to act as clerk in a branch store 
he had established at a village about twelve miles distant. My usefulness as clerk was only 
marred by a habit I acquired, when left to myself, of shutting up the store in the morning 
and going out squirrel-hunting, seldom returning before dark. So, between woi'k and play, 
with some studying and a good deal of reading, my years wore on, until it seemed good to 
me to go down to the great city of New York and seek my fortune. 

I was now between sixteen and seventeen years old. New York interested me amazingly 
— so much so, that with wandering and wondering around, I spent nearly all my money 
before even attempting to find anything to do. Thinking all things over, I determined at 
this crisis to be a reporter. True, I knev/ little of the city, and nothing at all about news- 
papers ; but it seemed to me that the editor's life was a grand one. Looking back at it iio'v, 
I 'm afraid I wanted to be an editor principally because I had discovered that editors were 
admitted to theatres and all places of amusement free. 

I must mention here that I had written several compositions, in both prose and verse, while 
at school, which were much praised by the teachers, and which went far to confirm my mother 
in the belief that I was yet destined to become a missionary or some other great man. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 443 

So being introduced by a friend to Mr. Snow, of the Tribune, th it jrontleman set me to 
getting up an article telling what was going on in the shipyards. This I did in quite a cred- 
itable manner, and it was actually printed pretty nearly iis I wrote it. Being so fortunate, 
also, while circulating about the wharves, as to see a woman fall into the water, I made 
quite an interesting item about that too ; so ray boat seemed (luite successfully afloat on the 
waters of journalism. 

But wandering about among ships and shipyards had a strange effect on me, — it kindled 
all the roving blood in my veins; and after sundry conversations with old salts whom I 
found chewing their quids on the wharves, I determined to be a sailor. Having once deter- 
mined, I took no further counsel with au}' one, but set out for South Street. A sign in front 
of a shipping-office stated that fifty young Americans were wanted to go on a whaling voy- 
age ! Here seemed my chance. Trembling, lest every situation was filled, I entered the 
office and asked if there was still a vacancy. To my great joy, I was told that there was. 
My name was down on the books in a moment, and the next morning I was in New Bedford. 
I wrote home, telling my parents what I had done ; but by the time they had my letter, I 
was afloat — bound to the Pacific Ocean on a three years' voyage. 

I was never sea-sick ouce ; and, notwithstanding many hardsliips and a great deal of ill 
usage, I enjoyed my sailor's life much ; and to this day, at times I look back to it with regret. 
I learned very many lessons which have been useful to me in after life. Beginning my 
studies on a lake, I graduated on the ocean. 

I was at sea about three years. Returning, I found that my parents had moved to the 
West, and, yielding to their entreaties, I went out to Illinois to visit them, though fully de- 
termined to follow the sea thenceforth for a living. But once at home, old ties reasserted 
themselves, and I went into business with an elder brother. Moderately successful for a 
while, a wheat speculation, which resulted unfavorably, set me back where I began — a little 
further back, iu fact. But of this wheat speculation I wrote a humorous account, which 
was published in one of the Chicago papers. This made a " hit," being very generally copied, 
and finally attracted the attention of Henry J. Raymond. 

Very soon thereafter (in 1860) 1 found myself contributing to the New York Times, and 
next was offered a position in the editorial rooms. I originated the "Minor Topic" col- 
umn, brief pointed paragraphs on current subjects, did some correspondence that attracted 
considerable attention, and was finally put in charge of " new publications ; " and here my 
acquaintance with publishers began. I should have stated, however, that previous to my 
connection with the Times, I had published a number of "poems" in Harper's Weekly — 
it being so much easier to write poetry than prose. 

I remained on the Times until the spring of 1863, when I went out to California, to take 
the position of City Editor on the San Francisco Bulletin. Leaving the Bulletin at the ex- 
piration of mj' j'ear, I started the Californian, a journal which acquired some celebrity 
and no inconsiderable reputation at the East as well as on the Pacific Coast. During the 
existence of the Californian both Mark Twain and Bret Harte became contributors to it, 

— this was, of course, before they were known at the East. While editing and publishing 
the Californian, I correspomled for the Sacramento Union and the New York Times, besides 
bringing out two plays which had rather successful runs on the San Francisco stage. 

Returning to New York in 1866, I became a contributor to the Times, the Tribune, Har- 
per's Magazine, Weekly, and Bazar, Hours at Home, and the Springfield Republican. 
To exemplify what an author can do as his own publisher, 1 published "Liffith Lank," 

— a travesty of Charles Reade's Griffith Oaunt — and St. 'Twelmo,— -a travesty of Miss 
Evans's St. Elmo — and made a good deal of money out of them. Since, as an experiment 
of what an author can do with a publisher, J have issued a brochure entitled " The Wickedest 
Woman in New York," and received just S*22.53 as my share of the proceeds. 

My friend Mark Twain coming East while I was publishing my own works, and being 
de-irous of getting before the public, I undertook to publish a hook for bnn —moved to a 
belief in its success from the fact that uoarly all the prlnciial publishers in tiio United 



444 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

States had refused it. This selection from his miscellaneous writings was given to the 
world as The Jumping Frog of Calaveras and Other Sketches, by Mark Twain, a book of some 
220 pages. It made an immediate success, and the copyright to-day would be worth to any 
publisher $5000 a year. At the request of the author, who wished to use some of the 
sketches in another form, and suppress others entirely, the stereotype plates were melted 
down about a year since, and The Jumping Frog has disappeared as a book from the trade 
forever. 

In 186S I patented the machine known as " Webb's Adder," and in 1869, having perfected 
the machine and completed the machinery necessary for its economical manufacture, it was 
offered to the public. Finding the impression prevalent that I was asking the community 
to take a viper to its bosom, I have since caused it to be known as Webb's Adding Machine 
— the name now explains the machine. 

Having gotten the patent Adding Machine well a-going, it seemed patent to me that it 
was well-nigh time to bethink myself of multiplying. So October 11, 1870, 1 was married to 
the sweetest little woman in the world — of course excepting everybody else's wife. 

And now in my quiet little home of Orange, N. J., I am seriously bethinking myself of 
doing something; for it really seems to me that in my life hitherto I have done nothing 
at all. 

And yet T can remember when it seemed to me that if I could only get a situation on 
some New York daily, I should have nothing further to ask for — earth couid contain no 
greater advancement. And within three months I have refused three offers of excellent 
editorial positions. How men and times change ! How small the object of our ambition 
seems when once reached — how diminutive when passed. 

B. P. Shillaber,— '^'^Mrs. Partington." 

BENJAiNn:?? P. Shillaber, 1814 , bv his conception of the character 

of Eulh Partington, has entitled himself to a place among genuine humor- 
ists. The old lady has become, indeed, in the public mind, a living per- 
sonage, almost as distinctly as Artemus Ward himself. 

Mr. Shillaber was born in Portsmouth, N. H. He left school at fifteen, for the printing 
office. Having served three years in Dover, N. H., he came to Boston in 1832, and "finished 
his trade." 

In 1835 he went to British Guiana (Demerara) threatened with consumption. There he 
was connected with the Royal Gazette for nearly two years, as compositor. In 1837, he re- 
turned, and married, still a journeyman. In 1840, he became connected with the Post, and 
worked at the case till 1850. 

In 1847, he began to write for that paper. The Partington sayings began here. The adop- 
tion of the name was unpremeditated. There were certain things to be said, and by some 
chance the name of Mrs. Partington occurred, which was adopted without a thought of 
anything beyond a present satisfaction. It might have been Brown or Smith as well ; but 
Sidney Smith's " Mrs. Partington and her Mop," were in his mind, and these sayings were 
cognate. Apart from this suggestion of the name, the whole conception of Ruth Parting- 
ton, as known to American readers, is unquestionably a pure creation of Mr. Shillaber's. 

In 1850, he left the Post and joined the Pathfinder as printer and editor. From this sprung 
the Carpet Bag, of which he had control for two years. It was a mildly humorous sheet, in 
the best sense of that much abused word. It concentrated an array of excellent talent. 
Chas. G. Eastman, John G. Saxe, Chas. G. Halpine (Miles O'Reilly), Chas. F. Browne (Arte- 
mus Ward), and many others wrote for it. 

In 1852, he published a book of poems, entitled Rhymes with Reason and Without, that 
was well received by the best critics. In 1S53, The Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 445 

appeared, and had an immense sale, orders for the first edition of twenty thousand exhausting 
the whole before a book wjis issued. Tliis was sncceeded, a year or two later, by Knitting 
Worli, wliich met with nearly as much favor. After which, becoming a more exclusively 
newspaper man, he wrote little except on current matters, and made no sign of publication 
in book form. 

In 185H, he returned to the Post, and continued for three years as local reporter, and in 
1856 was associated, on the Saturday Evening Gazette, with Wm. W. Clapp, Jr., Esq., con- 
tinuing with him until the paper changed hands in 1866. Since that time he has written 
much for various publications. 

Mr. Shillaber ha.5 anotler volume ready for publication, the name not yet decided upon. 

At the annual commencement of Dartmouth College, in 1871, Mr. Shillaber, on the invi- 
tation of the literary societies of the College, read a Poem, following the Address by Dr. 
McCosh, and was at the same time elected an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society. 

In reply to the question whether the old lady is still living, Mr. Shillaber says : " Ruth 
Partington is not dead yet. Her virtues, flagrant as her souchong, still exhale for human 
delectation, her specs still beam with the benevolence of olden time, but her vivacity is 
somewhat impaired by the reproach of old age. A conscience that acquits her of nothing 
makes the days pass as pleasantly as the Indian summer." Of himself he says, "I am now 
in the grandfatherly period (aet 58), and enjoying as much happiness to my avoirdupois 
(240 lbs.) as any other man, — experiencing, as Mrs. Partington says, the true opium cum 
digitalis" 

SAYINGS BY MRS. PARTINGTON. 

" Dear me ! here they are going to have war again over the sea, and only for a Turkey, 
and ft don't say how much it weighed either, nor whether it was tender; and Prince Knock- 
emstiff has gone off in a miff, and the Rushian bears and austriches are all to be let loose to 
devour the people, and heaven knows where the end of it will leave off. War is a dreadful 
thing — so destroying to temper and good clo'es, and men shoot at each other just as if they 
was gutter purchase, and cheap at that." 

"\yhat is yonr opinion of the humor of Hawthorne, Mrs. Partington? " asked a young 
neighbor that had been reading 'Twice-Told Tales.' " I don't know," said she, looking at 
him earnestly; "but if you have got it, you'd better take something to keep it from strik- 
ing in. Syrup of buckthorne is good for all sorts of diseases of that kind; I don't know 
about the humor of Hawthorne, but I guess the buckthorne will be beneficious. We eat 
too much butter, and butter is very humorous." 

"It is all very true, Mr. Knickerbottom," said Mrs. Partington, as she read in the Knicker- 
bocker something concerning brevity and simplicity of expression; "it's true, as you say; 
and how many mistakes there does happen when folks don't understand each other! Why, 
last summer I told a dressmaker to make me a long visite, to wear, and, would you believe 
it, she came and staid a fortnight with me? Since then I 've made it a pint always to speak 
just what I say." 

"I never liked the Swedenvirgins; but I ain't one that believes nothing good can come 
out of Lazarus, for all that, now. Now, there's Jenny Lind, — that is so very good to ovcMy- 
body, and who sings so sweet that everybody's falling in love with her, tipsy-tucvy, and 
gives away so much to poor, indignant people. They call her an angel, and who knows but 
she may be a syrup in disguise, f(u- the papers say her singing is like the music of the spears. 
How I should love to hear her! " 

"A nave in our church! Who can it be? Dear me, and they have been so careful, too, 
who they took in, — exercising 'em aforehand, and putting 'em through the catechis and 
the lethargy and pounding 'iin into a state of grace ! Who can it bo? " And the spectack's 
expressed anxiety. " I believe it must be slander after all. Oh, what a terrible tiling it is 

38 



446 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

to pisen the peace of a neighborhood deteriorating and backbiting, and lying about people, 
when the blessed trutli is full bad enough about the best of us! " 

" Entered at the Custom Home? " said Mrs. Partington, pondering on the expression ; " I 
don't see how the vessels ever got in ; but I am glad that the collector cleared 'em right 
out again. It will learn them better manners next time, I think." 

Deacon Snarl, in exhortation, would often allude to the "place where prayer is wont to 
be made." " Ah ! " said Mrs. Partington to herself, " there' s nothing like humility in a Chris- 
tian. I'm glad you confess it. I don't know a place under the canister of heaven where 
prayer is wanted more to be made than here, and I hope you '11 be forgiven for the rancor- 
ous butter you sold me yesterday." 

Mrs. Partington's neighbor, Mrs. Sled, complained one morning of a ringing in her ears. 
" It must be owing to the guitar in your head, dear," said the old lady. She knew every 
sort of human ailment, and, like the down-east doctor, was death on fits. " I know what 
ringing in the ears is," continued she; " for my ears used to ring so bad, sometimes, as to 
wake Paul out of his sleep, thinking it was an alarm of fire ! " 

" The prayer of Moses executed on one string ! " said Mrs. Partington. " Praying, I s'pose, 
to be cut down. Poor Moses ! " sighed she ; " executed on one string! Well, I don't know 
as ever I heard of anybody's being executed on two strings, unless the rope broke ; " and 
she went on wondering how it could be. 



H. W. Shaw, — '^ Josh Billings." 

Henry W. Shaw, 1818 , has acquired no little notoriety as a writer 

and '' lecturer," under the assumed name of " Josh Billings." 

To a letter of inquiry in regard to his career, Mr. Shaw gives the following statement : 

"I was born in Berkshire County, Mass., in 1818. I left home at fifteen; went to the fron- 
tier, lived there for twenty-five years, and know a good deal about border life. I had school- 
ing until I was fourteen. My father and grandfather were both members of Congress. I 
think my father was a graduate of your college ; if so, it must have been about 1812. His 
name was Henry Shaw. 

"I have been in every kind of business, but found none very profitable. I have been 
merchant, extensive farmer, drover, steamboat captain, auctioneer, etc., etc. 

"There is one thing perhaps a little peculiar. I never wrote a line fur the public eye 
until after I was forty -five years old. I entered Hamilton College when I was fourteen years 
old ; stayed out the freshman yeai*, and then fled to the edge of civilization. 

" My first book. Sayings of Josh Billings, was issued about 1866. It sold very well at that 
time, and even sells some now ; it was published in England, and met with reasonable 
success. 

" My next book. Josh Billings on Ice, has had a good sale. 

" In 1870 I put forth Josh Billings's Farmer's Allminax. Of this 90,000 copies were sold 
in that year; 117,000 in 1871; and 100,000 in 1872, the Chicago fire hurting the sale very 
much, so the publishers say. 

•' I have been married thirty years, have two daughters ; one lives in Venezuela, and the 
other in New York. I have four grandchildren, which are my glory and strength. 

" I lecture about the country in winter, and deliver, on an average, eighty lectures a sea- 
eon, or have for the last four winters. 

" I am employed, as a scribbler, on the New York Weekly, lor which I write exclusively, 
and receive from them $4,000 a year. I am offered $150 a night for ten nights next October 
in Kansas. My lectures are on Milk, What I Know about Hotels, and The Cockroach and 
his Friends. These are comic efforts. 

"I enjoy life, and love the funny side of all things." 

HENRY W. SHAW, "Josn Billings." 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 447 

RATS. 

Rats originally cnm from Norway, and i wish they had originally staid thare. 

They are about az uncalled for az a jiain in the small ov the back. 

They can be domestikated dredful eazy, that iz, as far as gitting in cupboards, and eating 
cheese, and knawiug pie, iz concerned. 

The best way to domestikate them that ever i saw, is tew surround them gently with a 
steel trap; yu can reason with them then tu great advantage. 

Rats are migratorious, they migrately wharever they hav a mind to. 

Pizen iz also good for rats ; it softens their whole moral naturs. 

Cats hate rats, and nits hate cats, and — who don't? 

V 

I serpoze thare iz between 50 and 60 millions of rats in Amerika (i quote now entirely 
from memory,; and i don't serpoze thare iz a single necessary rat in the whole lot. This 
shows at a glance how menny waste rats thare iz. Rats enhance in nunjbers faster than 
shoe-pegs do by machinery. One pair ov helthy rats iz awl that euny man wants to start 
the rat bizziness with, and in ninety daze, without enny outlay, he will begin tew have 
rats tew turn oph. 

Rats, viewed from enny platform yu kau bild, are unspcakibly cussed, and i would be will- 
ing tew make euny man who could destroy awl the rats in the United States, a valuable 
keepsake, say, for instance, either the life and suflfermgs of Andy Johnson, in one voUum 
calf bound, or a receipt tew kure the blind staggers. 

REMARKS. 

Fust appearances are ced tu be everything I don't put all my fathe into this saying, i 
think oysters and klams, for instanse, will bear looking into. 

If you want tew git a sure krop, and a big yield for the seed, sow wild oats. 

Humin nattir is the same all over the world, 'cept in New England, and thar it's akordin tu 
sarcumstances. 

If i had a boy who didn't lie well enuff to sute me, i wud set him tu tendin a retale dri 
good store. 

Man was created a little lower than the angells, and has bin gittin a little lower ever. 
sin.se. 

When a feller gits a goin down hil, it dus seem as tho evry thing had been greased for the 
okashun. 

It is dreadful easy tew be a phool — a man kan be one and not know it. 

Ignorance is ced to be bliss. This ma be so, I never tried it. 

The man who kan wear a shirt a hole weak and kcjip it klean, aint fit for enny thing else. 

When a man's dog deserts him on akount ov his poverty, he kant git enny lower down in 
tliis world, not hi land. 

Liiv is like the measels, we kant alwas tell when we ketched it, and ain't apt tew hav it 
severe but oust, and then it ain't kounted mutch unless it strikes inly. 

Charles G. Leland. 

Charles Godfrey Leland, 1824 , opened a new vein of liumor 

by liiifl conception of Hans Breitmann, a carousing, but shrewd, money-loving 
German immigrant, of a class that prevailed to a considerable extent before 
and during tlie war. 

Mr. Lcl.uid was born in Philadelphia (in Chestnut Street below Third, in the house from 
wliicli President Madison wooed and wedded his "Dolly "). When he was ten yeai-s of ago 
he went to a celebrated mcIiooI near Boston, Mr. Greene's, the same which Geo. Curtis Laa 
described in his novel Pruo and I. 



448 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

At fourteen or fifteen he published some little poems in newspapers, and within a year after, 
1840, he began to read everything by Carlyle and writers of that class, with the works also 
of their opponents. In a very few years he had perused with great care an incredible 
amount of metaphysics and general literature. Prof. Albert Dod said of him, at sixteen, 
that there were not ten men in America who had read more than he. 

At Princeton he neglected mathematics, but devoured metaphysics. He wrote a great deal 
for the college magazine, among other things an article on Spinoza. In ISiS he graduated 
and went to Europe, where he passed three years, meeting many distinguished men. He 
studied at Heidelberg, Munich, and the University of Paris, attending lectures at the Sor- 
bonne and Louis le Grand (college). 

From infancy, humor, in a high literary sense, had always peculiar charms for him. He was 
the only boy among ninety at school who regularly collected comic almanacs, jest-books, 
and such cheap facetise. Everything smacking of the quaint and curious pleased him to an 
inordinate degree. 

Being in Paris at the time, he took an active part in the French Revolution. He was even 
put into a caricature of the American deputation going to congratulate the Gouvernement 
Provisoire. He was armed in the fight, and was leader of a barricade. 

In October, 1848, he returned to Philadelphia and studied law, but soon gave it up for 
literature, writing articles for Sartain's Magazine and other periodicals. Afterwards he 
went to New York, and was a great deal with Rufus Griswold, and edited for a time the 
Illustrated News. In 1856, he returned to Philadelphia, went on the Bulletin, where he 
remained for three years. During this time he published Maister Karl's Sketch Book, 
translated Heine's Pictures of Travel and Book of Songs, wrote the Poetry and Mystery of 
Dreams, and finally went to New York again in the end of 1859. Here he engaged in many 
literary affairs, did the foreign editing for six months of the Times under Raymond, and 
edited Vanity Fair for one year, besides contributing about two hundred articles to Apple- 
ton's Cyclopaedia. 

On the breaking out of the war, Mr. Leland employed his pen very actively and efficiently 
in support of the national government. This he did for a time through the columns of the 
Knickerbocker, but afterwards more distinctly and boldly in a magazine, The Continental, 
started by himself and another gentleman, and published in Boston. He first broached and 
urged the idea of emancipation, as distinguished from abolition. 

In 1863, he returned to Philadelphia, and wrote and illustrated the Book of Copperheads. 
In that year also he translated the Memoirs of a Good for Nothing from the German of Yon 
Eichendorff. 

Before the end of the war he went West and engaged in coal-land and oil speculations, and 
passed the winter, spring, and summer of 1865 in travelling in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, and finally in West Virginia. After a most remarkable series of adventures, he returned 
to Philadelphia and went on the Press as managing editor. The paper under his management 
rose, from paying nothing, to paying $10,000 a year, clear. Having travelled to Kansas, he 
published an account of the very wild and jolly trip in a pamphlet. To Kansas and Back, or 
Three Thousand Miles in a Rail Road Car. Then he went again to St. Paul's and Duluth — 
when there were only six houses in the latter place. Then came the extraordinary success 
of Hans Breitmann, again lifted into popularity by the late German war. In May, 1869, he 
went to Europe — Paris, Spa, the Rhine; passed the winter in Dresden, Italy, Nice, Paris; 
and then to England, where he was at once cordially received by numbers of eminent people. 
He has been a guest at Lord Lytton's splendid country-seat, and often at his house in town ; 
has met Tennyson, Carlyle, Robert Browning, Ruskin, Lord Houghton, and numbers of 
others like them. In the summer of 1870 he went to the German spas and Switzerland, but 
for tlie last two years has lived in England. 

Mr. Leland has just completed two new volumes: The Music Lesson of Confucius and 
Other Poems, containing efforts to combine the Greek spirit of beauty — "the rights of the 
Flesh" with earnest Christian feeling; something in the spirit in which the Troubadours 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 449 

combined religious sentiment with an exalted ideal of love and beauty ; 2. Gandeamus, a 
translation of a number of rollicking German poems from Joseph V. SchefTel, the most popu- 
lar modern German poet Mr. Leland seems to have domiciliated himself permanently in 
England. 

Hejjrt Perry Leland, 1828-1S68, brother of Charles P. Leland, was a magazinist and 
author of some note. lie was a native of Philadelphia, and cultivated his talents by travel 
as well as by study. Besides numerous magazine and newspaper articles, he published two 
volnmes: Americans in Rome; and The Gray Bay Mare. He had a fine vein of humor, and 
would probably have risen to high distinction had his life been spared. 

Mortimer H. Thompson, , hiis written some very amusing sketches, under the 

name of Q. K. Philander Doesticks. The following are his published volumes: Doestick's 
Letters; Plu- Ri-Bus-Tah ; The Elephant Club; Witches of New York. 

George H. Derby, — ''John Phoenix." 

George H. Derby, 1824-1861, U. S. Topographical Engineer, while 
stationed on the California Coast, wrote a series of very amusing papers 
under the assumed name of " John Phoenix." These were published after- 
wards in a volume, called Phoenixiana. 

Mr. Derby was bom in Norfolk County, Mass., and graduated at West Point, in the 
class of 1&46. He was brevetted for gallantry in the Mexican war. While employed by 
the U. S. government in erecting light-houses on the coast of Florida and Alabama, he 
received a sunstroke, which caused a softening of the brain. He died, however, in New 
York city. 

A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 

This system — shall I say this great system — is exceedingly simple, and easily explained 
in a few words. In the first place, " figures won't lie." Let us then represent by the num- 
ber 100 the maximum, the ne phis iillra of every human quality — grace, beauty, courage, 
strength, wisdom, learning — everything. Let perfection, I say, be represented by 100, and 
an absolute minimum of all qualities by the number 1. Then applying the numbers between 
to the adjectives used in conversation, we shall be able to arrive at a very close approxi- 
mation to the idea we wish to convey ; in other words, we shall be enabled to speak the 
truth. Glorious, soul-inspiring idea' For instance, the most ordinary question a.sked of 
you is, "How do you do?" To this, instead of replying, ''Pretty well," "Very well," 
"Quite well," or the like absurdities — after running through your mind that perfection of 
health is IfK), no health at all, 1 — you say, with a graceful bow, "Thank you, I'm 52 to- 
day ; " or, feeling poorly, " I'm 13, I'm obliged to you ," or " I'm 68," or " 75," or " ST},^," as 
the ca.«e may be! Do you see how very close in this way you may approximate to the 
truth; and how clearlj- your questioner will understand what he so anxiously wishes to 
arrive at — your exnct state of health. 

Let this system be adopted into our elempnts of grammar, our conversation, onr literature, 
and we become at once an exact, precise, mathematical, truth-telling people. It will apply 
to everything but politics; there, truth being of no account, the system is useless. But 
in literature, how admirable! Take an example. 

As a 19 young lady and 76 hateful lady was 52 gaily tripping down the sidewalk of 
our 84 frequented street, she accidentally came in contact — 100 (this shows that she came 
in close contact with a 75 fat, but S7 good-humored ]o«»king gentleman, who was 9.3 {\. e., 
intently) gazing into tlie window of a toy-shop. Gracefully 5f)('Xtricate<l lu'rs«lf,sht' n-cfived 
tlie excuses of the 96 embarriissed FalstaflT with a 6S bland smile, and continued on her 
way. But hardly — 7 — had she reached the corner of the block ere she was overtaken by 
38* 2D 



4t0 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

a 24 young man, 32 poorly dressed, but of an 85 expression of conntenance; 91 hastily 
touching her 54 beautifully rounded arm, he said to her 67 surprise : 

"Madam, at the window of the toy-shop yonder, you dropped this bracelet, which I had 
the 71 good fortune to observe, and now have the 94 happiness to hand to you." Of course 
the expression "94 happiness" is merely the young man's polite hyperbole. 

Blushing with 76 modesty, the lovely (76, as before of course) lady took the bracelet — 
which was a 24 magniticent diamond clasp — (24 magnificent, playfully sarcastic; it was 
probably not one of Tucker's) from the young mans hand, and 84 hesitatingly drew 
from her beautifully 38 embroidered reticule a 67 porte-monnaie. The young man noticed 
the action, and 73 proudly drawing back, added : 

"Do not thank me; the plea.sure of gazing for an instant at those 100 eyes (perhaps 
too exaggerated a compliment), has already more than compensated me for any trouble 
that I might have had." 

She thanked him, however, with a 67 deep blush, and a 48 pensive air, turned from him, 
and pursued with a 33 slow step her promenade. 

Seba Smith, — *^^ Major Jack Do'wning." 
Seba Smith, 1792-1868, the "Jack Downing" of tlie last generation, 
belongs chronologically to the preceding chapter. But his writings seem 
to be naturally associated with those of the humorists now under considera- 
tion, and therefore he is mentioned here. 

Mr. Smith was born in Turner, Me., and died at Patchogue, Long Island, N. Y. He was 
of a good family, well to do, long-lived, intelligent, and religious. He graduated at Bowdoin 
College in 1818, taking the highest honors of his class. The simplicity of his life, the sweet- 
ness, purity, and truthfulness of his character made him a general favorite, although a nat- 
ural reserve and shyness limited his acquaintance to the few. 

Mr. Smith is best known by his Letters of Major Jack Downing. Of these Lord Brougham 
once declared that they "were not merely humorous, but statesmanlike, and for quaintness 
and humor, originality and genius, unequalled since the writings of Hudibras." 

Mr. Smith's other publications are the following: Powhatan, a metrical romance; Dew- 
Drops of the Nineteenth Century; Way Down East, or Portraitures of Yankee Life; My 
Thirty Years out of the Senate, by Major Jack Downing; New Elements of Geometry. 

One well acquainted with Mr. Smith, and a thoroughly competent witness, bears the fol- 
lowing emphatic testimony to the purity and simplicity of his character: "No one can read 
the introduction to his New Elements of Geometry, without being impressed with the 
learning and earnestness of the author. A few weeks before his death he was talking with 
me upon this subject, when he remarked, 'It does not matter whether the doctrine, the 
scientific truth I have discovered, be accepted this year, or five hundred years hence," t^ la 
the Truth, and it will precait:^ There is something sublime in such assurance. 

" The close of his life was quiet, in the sanctuary of home, which he rarely ever left, even 
on brief occasions, being purely domestic in his tastes and habits. He was indifferent to 
wealth or fashion, ridiculed all ostentation, and believed in the native dignity of man with- 
out exterior decorations. He was warm and enduring in his friendships, never losing a 
friend, except by death. He enjoyed his fame, treating with indifierence those who strove 
to detract from his well-earned reputation. Few men have been more equable under mis- 
fortune, none less elated by success." 

He married Elizabeth Oakes Smith, March 6th, 1823, who brought him six children, 
all sons. 

ON MAKING THE PRESIDENT A DOCTOR OF LAWS. 

When we were at Boston, they sent word to us to come to Cambridge, for they wanted to 
make the President [JacksonJ a doctor of laws. What upon airth a doctor of laws was, or 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 451 

why they wanted to make the President one, I couldn't think. So when we come to po up 
to lied I asked the Gineral about it. And says I, " Gineral, wliat is it they want to do to you 
out to Cambridge ? " Says he, " Tliey want to make a doctor of laws of me." " Well," says 
I, " but what good will that do? " " Why," says he, " yon know. Major Downing, there's a 
pesky many of them are laws passed by Congress, that are rickety things. Some of 'em 
have very poor constitutions, and some of 'em haven't no constitution at all. So that it is 
necesj'ary to have somebody there to doctor 'em up a little and not let 'em go out into the 
world, where they would stand a chance to catch cold and be sick, without they had good 
constitutions to bear it. You know," says he, " I've had to doctor the laws considerable 
ever since I've been at Washington, although I wasn't a regular bred doctor. And I made 
out so well about it, that these Cambridge iblks think I'd better be made into a regular doc- 
tor at once, and then there '11 be no grumbling and disputing about my practice." Sajs he, 
" Major, what do you think of it? " I told him I thought it an excellent plan ; and asked 
him if he didn't think they would be willing, bein' I'd been round in the military business 
considerable for a year or two past, to make me a doctor of war. lie said he didn't know, 
but he thought it would be no harm to try 'em. " But," says he, " Major, I feel a little kind 
of streaked about it, after all^ for they say they will go to talking to me in Latin, and 
although I studied it a little once, I don't know any more about it now than the man in 
the moon. And how I can get along in that case, I don't know." I told him my way, 
Mhen anybody talked to me in a lingo that I didn't understand, was jest to say nothing, 
but look as knowing as any of 'em, and then they ginerally thought I knew a pesky sight 
more than any of "em. At that the Gineral fetched me a slap on my shoulder, and haw- 
hawed right out. Says he, " Major Downing, you are the boy for me; I don't know how I 
should get along in this world if it wasn't for you." 

So when we got ready we went right to Cambridge as bold as could be. And that are 
Cambridge is a real pretty place ; it seems to me I should like to live in them colleges as 
well as any place I've seen. We went into the libry, and I guess I stared a little, for I 
didn't think before there was half so many books in the world. I should think there was 
near about enough to fill a meetiu'-house. I don't believe they was ever all read, or ever 
will be to all ages. 

When we come to go in to be made doctors of, there was a terrible crowding around; 
but they give us a good place, and sure enough, they did begin to talk in Latin or some 
other gibberish; but whether they were talking to the Gineral, or who 'twas, I couldn't 
tell. 1 guess the Gineral was a little puzzled. But he never said a word, only once in 
a while bowed a little. And I s'pose he happened sometimes- to put the bows in the 
wrong place, for I could see some of the sassy students look up one side once in a while, 
and snicker out of one corner of their mouths. Ilowsomever, the Gineral stood it out 
like a hero, and got through very well. And when 'twas over, I stcpt up to Mr. Quincey 
and asked him if he wouldn't be so good as to make me a doctor of war, and hinted to 
him a little aliout my services down to Madawaska and among the NuUifiers. At that he 
made me a very polite bow, and says he, "Major Downing, we should be very happy to 
oblige you if we could, but we never give any degrees of war here; all our degrees are 
degrees of peace." So I find I shall have to practise war in the natural way — let nulli- 
fication or what will come. After 'twas all over, we went to Mr. Quincey's and had a 
capital dinner. And, on the whole, bad about as good a visit to Cambridge as most 
anywhere. 

Geo. W. Bagby, — '' Mozis Addums." 

George William Bagby, M. D., 1828 , of Lynchburg, Va., has an 

extended re[)utation in tlie Southern States, and is not unknown further 
North, by his amusing Letters to Mozis Addums, and by other writings of 
a humorous character. 



452 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Bagby w<as born in Buckingham County, Ya., son of a Lynchburg merchant. He was 
fitted for college at the Edgeliill School, Princeton, N. J., then under the care of the author 
of the present volume. Young Bagby entered Delaware College in 1843, but left at the end 
of the Sophomore year. He studied medicine and took his degree at the University of Penn- 
83'lvania, but has never practised. In 1853, he became editor of the Daily Express, Lynch- 
burg. He was for several years Washington Correspondent of the New Orleans Crebcent, 
Charleston Mercury, and Richmond Dispatch. He wrote for Harper's Magazine, My Wife 
and My Theory about Wives, and other articles ; also for the Atlantic an article on Wash- 
ington City. In 1860 he succeeded John R. Thompson as editor of the Southern Literary Mes- 
senger, and continued to edit it till near the close of the war. He was at the same time 
associate editor of the Richmond Whig, and correspondent of the Charleston Mercury, Mobile 
Register, Memphis Appeal, and Columbus (Ga.) Herald, and contributed to the- Southern 
Illustrated News. 

His eyes suffering from overwork, he began lecturing, in 1865, and met with good success 
as a humorous lecturer in many parts of Yirginia and Maryland. His most successful lec- 
tures were : Bacon and Greens, or The Native Yirginian ; Womenfolks ; An Apology for Fools, 
etc. His best known writings are his articles in Harper, already mentioned, and his Letters 
to Mozis Addums, and to Billy Ivvins. Dr. Bagby, since 1870, has been State Librarian and 
First Clerk to the Secretary of State, at Richmond. The passage quoted is from an article 
in the Southern Literary Messenger, May, 1863. 

GOOD EATINGS. 

In the lower part of my countenance there is a remarkable excavation, which, while it 
does not disfigure me a great deal, costs me a heap of money and gives me a world of trouble. 
To fill up this pit has been the labor of my life. For nearly forty years I have been hard 
at it, and the pit, this day, is. if anything, rather emptier than it ever was before. Don't ask 
me what I have put into it to fill it up ; rather ask me what I have not. They tell me that 
the good people who first discovered this gaping cavern, endeavored to stop it up with — 
what do you reckon? Milk ! Fact, I assure you ; they tried milk. It makes me laugh to 
think of such folly. Yet year after year I see folks pouring milk into other excavations. 
There is mighty little sense in this world. Gallons upon gallons of milk are wasted, when 
a handful of mortar would do the business in a minute. In Skitsland, they fill these human 
pits with beeswax, and there is never any more trouble with them. I think I shall try the 
beeswax plan myself, if this war don't end pretty soon. 

Since I quit being a baby, I have tried everything in earth, air and water, dirt not excepted, 
and the plaguey excavation will not stay filled. I think there is a quicksand bottom to it, 
if it ha-s any bottom, which I doubt. Did I mention that the act of filling this pit was called 
eating? I don't want to deceive you. My mouth is the wonderful excavation alluded to. 

It 's very strange, but somehow I love to eat. Don't you ? I can't help it. As far back 
as I can remember, I loved to eat ; and now the habit is so confirmed that I don't even 
want to break myself of it. Yes, matters have come at length to such a pass, that unless I 
go three times a day to a long table and thrust a variety of things into my excavation, I 
am' sure to feel badly. And sometimes I feel badly if I do thrust them down. Odd, isn't 
it? That's what you call dyspepsia, or the dyspepsy. I wouldn't advise you to get the 
dyspepsy, because the dyspepsy is a bad thing to have. 

Not only do I love to eat, but 1 love to sit down and think about the good things I have 
eaten in my time. Is that the case with yourself? It makes me mighty hungry — it's like 
reading about feasts and drinking-bouts in novels, late at night, when all the restaurants 
and oyster-cellars are shut up, and you couldn't get a crust of bread to save your life. 
Still, I love to think over the glorious meals I have enjoyed in times past, when I had the 
stomach of a Muscovy drake, and could eat forevor. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 453 

The first good eating I remember, wiis at my Aunt Betsy's. She lived in the County of 
Cuniberhind, so far out of the world tiiat she took to good eating as a resource against enmd. 
She had more kinds of bread than any woman I ever heard of; splendid, hot, higli, light 
bread — the best bread for breakfast of all others, if I am a judge — and rolls, and biscuit, 
and waffles, and buttercakes, and muffin*, and pone, and ash-cake, and hoe-cake, and "salt- 
risen " bread, and apple-bread, and crackliii bread — did yon ever eat any cracklin bread ? — 
and many others ; to say notliing about fritters, and pan-cakes, and suet-dumplings, and 
things of that sort. Then meats — especially at hog-killing time — when we revelled in 
spare-ribs, sausages, chine, sauce, brains — particularly brains — dear life! howl did eat 
brains ! and even chitterlings. But I can't say that I loved chit'lins. Don't ask me whether 
I ate i)ig-tails, too. Do you think I would dare call myself a Virginian if I had not gnawed 
many a one ; tasting it gently with the tip of my tongue while it was burning hot, and sousing 
it in the snow to hasten its cooling, so that I might the quicker glut my appetite upon the 
brown, crisp skin ? How much more delightful, too, because of the presence of half-a-dozen 
little negro playmates, engaged in the same occupation. Tell me nothing about Charles 
Lamb's Chinese theory of the origin of roast pig; mankind would never have learned the 
sublime virtue of cooked pig-skin, but for the Virginia practice of eating pig-tails. 

A few years later found me at a boarding-school [Edgehill] in New Jersey, and with an 
appetite bigger than my breeches, so to speak. We lived plainly, as is not uncommon at 
boarding-schools, and we talked French at table. 

During the session, which lasted five months, we were never allowed to eat butter and 
molasses — glorious combination for the young stomach, when the butter is good, as it 
generally was at Edgehill — together, and that was a great hardship* On Saturdays, we 
received from the Principal, who kept all our money, from twenty-five cents (never 
more than that) down to four pence ha'penny — " fip" they called it in Princeton Yankee 
lingo — and even less than that — nothing, with bread and water, and "kept in" all daj- — 
according to our good or bad behavior during the week. There was a negro man, named 
Horace Scudder, who was a sort of janitor — that is, fire-maker and sweep-outer — who kept 
a little shop in the basement, and sold ice-cream in the summer-time, oysters in winter, and 
cakes, candy, apples, nuts, etc., all the time. Ice-cream was three cents a glass, as well as I 
remember, and oysters fo"pence a dozen — and, you may depend upon it, Saturday night 
saw little of the boys' money left. Consequently few of them came to supper. Then was 
my time, for then I could indulge my rage for milk, of which a pint each was allowed us 
for our evening meal. I seized every bowl within reach of me, and I pledge you my word 
I've drunk a half gallon — perhaps a gallon — eight pints make a gallon, don't they? — a 
gallon of milk many and many a Saturday night. Now I can't drink it at all. Well, I had 
my share at Princeton ; that's one consolation. 

In the vacation — many of us were from the far South, and stayed with Mr. Hart during 
the vacation — we had many privileges — could lie abed till breakfast-time and eat butter 
and molasses togetlier. Great fathers! howl did eat! There was a fellow named Jones, 
from North Carolina, upwards of twenty years old — a mighty good fellow too — who had 
come to Edgehill to learn a little Latin and Greek preparatory to studying medicine in 
Philadelphia. Jones took quite a fancy to me, and told me privately, one day, that he never 
got tired of eating bread and butter and molasses. After that, all misgivings, if I ever had 
any, vanished. I fell upon the bread and butter and mohusses and milk, even as Samson foil 
upon the Philistines, when he slew them with the jawbone of an ass — heaps upou heaps 
did he slay them. Thus was it with my incisors, my canines, my cuJspids and bicuspids, in 
the land and upon the viands of the Jerseys — even in the home of the Yankee, and upon 
the victuals thereof, until I got me thence unto mine own i^ace. 

I pass over the sorrows I endured for a whole week at Edgehill from eating toasted cheese. 
I make no mention of the day I spent in Commodore Stockton's splendid orchard and ato 
apples from breakfast till the sun went down ; and I say nothing of the glorious fries of sun- 
perch caught in Stony Brook on Saturdays ; or gf the New Year's dinners in Trenton ; or of 



454 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Christmas and Fourth of July feasts, compounded cf the contents of boxes of goodies sent 
the boys, or made up by " fellows flinging in " and buying things down town. I leave all 
this out, and come at once to a notable eating — an unexpected treat, that I shall never for- 
get. Attend : 

Under the big school-room was a room of the same size called the play -room. The boys 
played there in wet weather, and dancing and fencing masters gave their lessons tht-io. A 
row of seats next the wall extended the whole length of each side of the room, and under 
each seat was a box, which could be locked, and in which the boys kept their apples, shell- 
barks, walnuts, chestnuts and such like. One day, after dinner, I was sitting in this room 
by my lone self. What I was doing there, I don't know, but think I was reading Midship- 
man Easy. Suddenly a fellow, whose name I am ashamed to say I forget — ran in, popped 
something down on the seat beside me, and ran out, saying : " Mother's come; yoiv may have 
that." What do you think "that" was? "That" was a very large old hen, about nine 
years old I should say, roasted to a turn by Mrs. Horace Scudder, with plenty of gravy, and 
bread according. Remember, I had had my dinner. Nevertheless, I dismissed Midshipman 
Easy ; took " that " by her legs (there was no knife and fork), tore her in two, and in ten min- 
utes consumed her to the very last bone, that lay glistening and naked in the gravyless and 
breadless plate before my still greedy eyes. I tell you I could eat in those days ! I wonder 
if the boy that gave me that old " that " is still living I hope he is, and his mother too. If 
he is, he will please accept my thanks; if he is gone, this shall be the record, and the 
only one, I suspect, of his noble generosity. 

William T. TnonpsoN, , a native and resident of Savannah, Ga., is the author of 

three very amusing books; Major Jones's Courtship; Major Jones's Sketches of Travel; 
Major Jones's Characters of Pineville. 

Judge Longstreet. 

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, LL. D., 1790-1870, was among the 
most successful humorists of his day. His Georgia Scenes, for broad, irre- 
sistible fun, has rarely been equalled. 

Judge Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, S. C. He graduated at Yale, and studied 
law at Litchfield, Conn. In 1821 he entered the Georgia Legislature. In 1822 he was 
elected Judge of the Superior Court. After serving some years on the bench, he resumed 
practice. In 1838 he became a Methodist minister. In 1839 he was elected President of 
Emory College, Oxford, Ga., and held the position nine years. In 1848 he became Presi- 
dent of Century College, and in the same year President of the University of Mississippi, 
remaining in the latter post six years. In 1857 he was elected President of South Carolina 
College, and remained there till 1861. His closing years were spent in retirement at Ox- 
ford, Miss. 

Judge Longstreet's publications were as various as his life. Besides the work already 
named, he wrote Letters to Clergymen of the Northern Methodist Church ; Letters from 
Georgia to Massachusetts; A Letter to the London Times, on the admission of a Negro to 
the International Congress; Master William Mitten, a Youth of Brilliant Talents, who was 
Ruined by Bad Luck; and a great variety of other productions. But the only one that 
survives to give him A permanent place in literature, is the work fii'st named, Georgia 
Scenes, Characters, Incidents, etc., during the first half century of the republic. Though 
written in a spirit of broad fun, it is probably, like Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of 
New York, the best and truest picture of the times that it describes, and will be valuable 
as history a hundred years hence. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 455 

GEORGIA THEATRICS. 

If my memory fails me not, the 10th of Juno, 1809, found mc, at about 11 o'clock in the 
afternoon, ascending a long and gentle slope in what was called "The Dark Corner" of 
the county of Lincoln. 

Rapt with the enchantment of the season and the scenery around me, I was slowly rising 
the slope, when I was startled by loud, prolane, and boisterous voices, which seemed to 
proceed from a thick covert of undergrowth al-out two hundred yards iu the advance of 
me, and about one hundred to the riglit of my road. 

" You kin, kin you ? " 

" Yes, I kin, and am able to do it, Boo-oo-oo ! Oh, wake snakes, and walk your chalks ! 
Brimstone and — fire ! Don't hold me, Nick Stoval ! The fight's made up, and let 's go at 
it. My soul if I don't jump down his throat, and gallop every chitterling out of him 
before he can say 'quit ' ! " 

"Now, Nick, don't liold him ! Jist let the wild-cat come, and I'll tame him. Ned '11 see 
me fair fight, won't you, Ned? " 

" Oh, yes ; I'll see you a fait fight, blast my old shoes if I don't." 

"That's sufficient, as Toin Ilaynes said, when he saw the elephant. Now lot him come." 

Thus they went on, witli countless oaths interspersed, which I dare not even hint at, 
and with much that I could not distinctly hear. 

In mercy's name ! tliought I, what band of ruffians has selected this holy season and 
this heavenly retreat for such Pandemonian riots ! I quickened my gait, and had come 
nearly opposite to the thick grove whence the noise proceeded, when my eye caught indis- 
tinctly, and at intervals, through the foliage of the dwarf-oaks and hickories which inter- 
vened, glimpses of a man or men, who seemed to be in a violent struggle ; and I could 
occasionally catch those deep-drawn, emphatic oaths which men in conflict utter when 
they deal blows. I dismounted and hurried to the spot with all speed. I had overcome 
about half the space which separated it from me, when I saw the combatants come to the 
ground, and, after a short struggle, I saw tlie uppermost one (for I could not see the other) 
make a heavy i)lunge with both his thumbs, and at the same instant I heard a cry in the 
accent of keenest torture, " Enough ! My eye 's out ! " 

I was so completely horror-struck that I stood transfixed for a moment to the spot 
where the cry met me. The accomplices in this hellish deed which had been perpetrated 
had all fled at my approach ; at least I supposed so, for they were not to be seen 

"Now blast your corn-shucking soul," said the victor (a youth about eighteen years old), 
as he rose from the ground, "come cutt'n your shines 'bout me agin, next time I come 
to the Courthouse, will you ! Get your owl eye in agin, if yer can ! " 

At this moment he saw me for the first time. He looked exceedingly embarrassed, and 
was moving off, when I called to him, in a tone emboldened by the sacredness of my office 
and the iniquity of his crime, "Come back, you brute! and assist mo in relieving your fel- 
low-mortal, whom you have ruined forever! " 

My rudeness subdued his embarnissment in an instant; and, with a taunting curl of his 
nose, he replied, "You needn't kick before you're spurr'd. There an't nobody there, nor 
han't be«'n nother. I was jist scein' how I could ha' font.'''' So saying, he bounded to his 
plough, which stood in the corner of tl»e fence about fifty yards beyond the battle-ground. 

And would you believe it. gentle reader! his report was true. AM that I had heard and 
seen was notliing more nor less than a Lincoln reheareal; in which.the youth who had just 
left me had i)layed all the parts of all the characters iu a court-house fight. 

I went to the ground from which ho had risen, and there were the prints of two thumbs, 
plunged up to the balls in the mellow earth, al)Out the distance of man's eyes apurt; uud 
the ground around wud broken up as if two stags had been engaged upon it. 



456 AMEKICAN I.ITEHATURE. 

VI. MISCELLANKOUS ^A/'RITERS. 

Bayard Taylor. 

Bayard Taylor, 1825 , has excelled, almost equally, in so many 

different lines of literary effort, that it is not easy to assign him to any one 
department of letters. He is eminent as a Traveller and a writer of Trav- 
^els, as a Newspaper Correspondent, as a Novelist, as a Poet, as a Poetical 
Translator. There seems no resource, therefore, but to place him at the 
head of Miscellaneous writers, although this association separates him some- 
what from those with whom he is most associated in the public mind. 

Mr. Taylor is a native of Kennet Square, Chester County, Pa., where he has now fixed liis 
residence after his many travels by land and sea. He was originally an apprentice in a 
printing-oflSce of his native place. 

In 1844, at the age of nineteen, he set out for Europe, and travelled afoot, for two years, 
M'ith light purse and light heart. The experiences of this pedestrian tour appeared in 1846, 
in Views a-Foot, or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff. This work, the first of a long 
eeries, established the author's reputation at once. 

Views a-Foot was followed, in 1850, by Eldorado, a Voyage to California, a work which ap- 
peared originally in the shape of letters to the New York Tribune. The gold-fever was then 
at its height, and Mr. Taylor's letters describing that period of excitement and the birth- 
throes of the new Pacific State, were eagerly devoured by hundreds of thousands of readei-s. 

Eldorado was followed, in 1854, by A Journey to Central Africa, or, as it is generally 
called, A Voyage on the Nile. The contrast in style and tone between the restless, reckless 
American society of Eldorado, and the quiet, dreamy dolcefar niente of the Nile, is one well 
worthy of note. 

In 1854 appeared The Lands of the Saracen ; in 1855, A Visit to India, China, and Japan ; 
in 1857, North Travel, or Sweden, Denmark, and Lapland; in 1859, Travels in Greece and 
Russia ; in 1867, Colorado. To these may be added some minor volumes — of sketches rather 
than of continuous narrative — such as At Home and Abroad, By-VTays of Europe, etc. 

Besides his books of travel, Mr. Taylor has also delivered of late years, many hundred 
lectures. 

His merits as a narrator are too well known to call for any special discussion in this 
place. The style is just what it should be — easy, sprightly, diversified, neither ambitiously 
soaring into turgid eloquence nor lapsing into wearisome monotony. It is evidently the 
expression of a genial, healthy mind, alive to the beauties of the external world, and in sym- 
pathy with mankind in all its motley phases. 

As a novelist, Mr. Taylor made his debut in Hannah Thurston, published in 1863, which 
was speedily followed by John Godfrey's Fortunes. The story of Kennett, published in 1866, 
is probably his best novel, although that title may be disputed by The Picture of St. John — 
a metrical romance — or by Joseph and his Friends. 

Mr. Taylor belongs to what is sometimes called the realistic class of novelists. His novels 
are, as they claim to be, accurately drawn pictures of certain phases of American life, not 
entering into the marvellous or the profoundly emotional, but still idealized above Ihe 
commonplace. The writer's art is shown in the execaition, rather than in the subject mat- 
ter, while the style is eminently clear and healthy, and interspersed witli genial touches of 
poetic feeling and judicious reflection. 

In addition to these novels of his own invention, Mr. Taylor has also published a transla- 
tion of Auerbacb's Villa ou the Rhine. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 457 

In 1S55, Qriswold hazarded the prediction concerning Mr. Taylor: "Eminent as he 
is as a writer of travels, his highest and most enduring distinction will be from his p»ietry 
.... his travels will hereafter be to his poems no more than those of Smollett were to his 
extraordinary novels." It will be interesting to see how far that prophecy has been 
fulfilled. 

At that time Mr. Taylor had published Xiniena (wTitten l)efore he was twenty years of 
age), Rhymes ol Travel, The American Legend, and tbe Buolc of Romances and Lyrics. 
These had been favorably i^eceived. Edgar A. Poe, that most fastidious of critics, was espe- 
cially pointed iu his praise of the rising poet, pronouncing him to be " the most terse, glow- 
ing, and vigorous of all our poets, young or old — in point of expression." 

Since then there have appeared I'oems of the Orient, Poems and Ballads, Poems of Home 
and Travel, The Poet's Journal, The Picture of St. John, Frithiof 's Saga (a translation from 
the Swedish), The Ballad of Abraham Lincoln, .ind several fugitive pieces. 

The latest and greatest, however, of Mr. Taylor's poetic efforts is the translation of 
Gcethe's Faust. The difSculties of such an undertaking can be appreciated only by those 
who are familiar with the original. It will be sufficient to say that Mr. Taylor's rendering 
has met with the warmest prai.se from Americans, English, and Germans. Even tho.se who 
are most critical in their judgments upon translations cannot withhold from Taylor's Faust 
their candid approval. The thought of the original is scrupulously preserved, the metre 
and the rhyme are retained even in the most intricate passages, and the ti'anslation has 
about it so much of the atmosphere of dignity of the original as to impress the lover of 
Goethe with a strong sense of the translator's thorough sympathy with his master. It is 
indeed a most refined and scholarly work, and places Mr. Taylor on the bench of honor by 
the side of Longfellow and Brj'ant. The translator is at present engaged upon a life of 
Goethe, which we may confidently expect to be the most complete and sympathizing reve- 
lation of the outward and inner life of Germany's master-mind, for the biographer will 
bring to his task every qualification of training, experience, research, and poetic insight. 

Among all our American writers it is difficult to name one who exemplifies in a more 
striking degree the Iloratian aphorism, Mens sana in sano cm-pore. To those who know him 
personally, Mr. Taylor s capacity for work of a high order and a diversified character is 
marvellous. No less admirable is the progressive development of his talents, and his steady 
and rapid giowth into fame and influence against obstacles that would have thwarted 
an ill-balanced genius. 

Gen. D. H. Strother, — '* Porte Crayon." 

Gen. David Hunter Strotiiek, 1816 , of Berkeley Springs, Va., 

the " Porte Crayon " of Harper's Magazine, is known to all classe.s of readers 
by his genial pen-and-pencil sketches of life and scenery in the witching 
mountain scenery of the Old Dominion. 

Gen. Strother was born in Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Va. Up to the age of twelve 
be received the ordinary English and classical education afforded by the village academy. 
Having almost from infancy shown a fondness for the arts, he was sent to Philadelphia, 
in 1821), to study drawing with Persico, and afterwards with Pietro Ancora, an Italian 
drawing-master, who lived on Walnut street, between Third and Fourth streets. 

In 1833 he entered the Sophomore Class of Jefl'erson College, at Canuonsburg, Pa., but 
having little taste for regular studies and less for college rules, his unprofit4iblo career 
there terminated in less than a year. 

The three years following were passed in feeble attempts at the study of law and medi- 
cine, aimle.<8 and desultory reading, wild sports and idle adventures in the mountains of 
Virginia. In 183G he went to New York, and entered as a pupil of S. F. B. Morse, theu 
Professor of Painting in ths University of New York. 
89 



458 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In the fall of 1838 Mr. Strother went to the West, professedly as a portrait painter. 
During his sojourn there he visited the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ken- 
tucky, spending his time principally in hunting, fishing, sight-seeing, and adventure, exer- 
cising his art at intervals, only as it became necessary to replenish his purse. 

Returning from the West he sailed for Europe, in 1840, and spent several years studying 
painting in the galleries of Paris, Florence, and Rome. 

Here, as at home, he gave the smallest portion of his time and effort to the specialty he 
had adopted, but devoted himself mainly to music, literature, and the modern languages. 
His favorite occupation, however, was the observation of men and manners, to which end 
he travelled over a great portion of Italy on foot, seeking by-roads, obscure districts, and 
towns not named in the guide-books. 

During this time he wrote to his friends in the United States a number of letters, which 
were published in a country newspaper, and attracted some general notice. 

Visiting France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and England, he returned to the United 
States, and in 1845 took up his residence in the city of New York, where, under the direc- 
tion of John G. Chapman, he acquired and practised the art of drawing on wood for the 
engravers, illustrating a number of tracts, books, and pamphlets. 

For the next four years, he passed his time between New York and Virginia, dividing 
his summers between wild sports in the mountains and gay society at the Virginia Springs, 
and working at the graphic arts during the winter languidly, like one Avho has not yet 
found his true vocation. 

In 1849 he married in Martinsburg, and took up his abode at his father's house, abandon- 
ing all business and professional effort, and occupying himself with art and literature only 
as amusements. 

During the next three yeai's he has left no record, except some characteristic sketches in 
oil and crayon, and the illustration of John P. Kennedy's "Swallow Barn." 

It was in 1852 and 1853 he made those pleasant journeys through the picturesque regions 
of Virginia, the results of which were offered to the Harpers for publication in 1853. From 
this date until the spring of 1861, his pen and pencil were rarely idle, as the pages of Har- 
per's Magazine and Weekly may attest. 

His principal productions, named in the order in which they appeared, are as follows: 
Virginia Canaan, 1 paper ; Porte Crayon and his Cousins, 5 papers ; The Dutchman and 
the Bear, 1 paper; The Dismal Swamp, Va., 1 paper; North Carolina Illustrated, 5 papers; 
A Winter in the South, 6 papers ; A Reminiscence of Rome, 1 paper ; Rural Pictures, 1 paper ; 
A Summer in New England, 6 papers. 

Besides those which were published in the Magazine between 1853 and June, 1861, he 
published the following in the Weekly : Alsit to Jamestown, Va. ; Pompey"s Philosophy, 
verse ; Letters and Illustrations of John Brown's Raid, etc., etc. 

On the breaking out of the war, in 1861, Mr. Strother moved his family to the Berkeley 
Springs, and abandoning literary pursuits, joined the United States Army, under the com- 
mand of Major-Gen eral Patterson, which had just entered Virginia. He entered the service 
as Civil Assistant in the Corps of Engineers, and was afterward commissioned Captain, 
Assistant Adjutant-General, Colonel of Cavalry, Chief of Cavalry, Inspector-General, and 
Chief of Staff of the Army of West Virginia. 

Having served in ten campaigns, twelve pitched battles, and twenty-two minor actions, 
he received from the National Government at the end of the war the honorary brevet of 
Brigadier-General, and a civil appointment to Buenos Ayres, which latter he declined. 

In May, 1865, he accomjjanied Governor Pierpont to Richmond, in the capacity of Aid, 
and was there appointed Adjutant-General of Virginia, and assisted in the pacification and 
reconstruction of the State. 

On the 1st of May, 1866, he resigned this olfice and retired to his home at the Berkeley 
Springs, to recuperate his broken health and fortunes. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 459 

During the j-ears 1866-67-68 he furnished eleven illustrated papers to Harper's Magazine, 
entitled, Reminiscences of the War. 

In 1868-69-70 he wrote and illustrated a serial called the Young Virginians, which ap- 
peared in the Riverside Magazine. Since 186'J he has published nothing except some news- 
paper articles, and an illustrated paper in Harper's Magazine on The Watkins Glen. 

He is now occupied in getting up a series of illustrated papers on the Mountains and 
Mountaineers of West Virginia, for Harper's Magazine, and iu completing his Personal Re- 
collections of the War. 

JoHx Ross Browne, 1817 , is an enterprising writer of travels, whose sketches both by 

pen and pencil have been very popular. They have appeared originally as contributions to 
Harper's Magazine, and have been published afterwards as separate volumes : Etchings of a 
Whaling Cruise ; Yusef, a Crusade in the East ; An American Family in Germany ; Crusoe's 
Island ; Land of Thor ; Adventures in the Apache Country. He was appointed Minister to 
China in 1868. 

James Jackson Jarves, 1818 , was born in Massachusetts. He spent several years in 

travel among the islands of the Pacific. He has published History of the Hawaiian or 
Sandwich Islands; Scenes and Scenery of the Sandwich Islands ; Kiana, a Tradition of Ha- 
waii , Scenes and Scenery in California; Parisian Sights and French Principles seen through 
American Spectacles; Italian Sights and Papal Principles seen through American Spec- 
tacles; Art -Hints on Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting; Art-Thoughts; Confessions 
of an Inquirer. 

J. C. Fletcher. 

Jaivies Cooley Fletcher, 1823 , has become extensively known 

by his work on Brazil and the Brazilians, and by his various missionary 
labors in that country. 

Mr. Fletcher was born at Indianapolis, Ind. His father was for many years a leading 
lawyer of central Indiana, who had exalted views of education, and sent no less than six of his 
sons to Brown University, Providence, R. I. J. C. Fletcher, after his preparatory studies at 
Phillips Exeter Academy, entered Brown University in 1842, and graduated in 1846. In 
1847 he commenced his theological course in the Seminary at Princeton. He spent two 
years at Princeton, and then leaving, determined to devote his exertions to preaching the 
gospel in Catholic countries. Ho went to Europe to complete his theological course and to 
perfect himself in the French language, with the idea of becoming a missionary to Hayti. 
For this purpose he studied in Paris, and afterwards in the Theological School of Geneva, 
Switzerland, under Dr. Merle d'Aubigne. He married at Geneva a daughter of Dr. Cesar 
Malan. 

He returned to the United States in 1850 ; and in 1851 the mission to Hayti was abandoned, 
and he was sent to Rio de Janeiro as the Chaplain-missionary of the American and Foreign 
Christian Union, and of the American Seamen's Friends Society. At Rio de Janeiro, in 
addition to his services as chaplain, he was called for a time to be the Secretary of the United 
States Legation, which brought him in contact with the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II. 
This mere diplomatic acquaintance ripened into a long and intimate friendship. 

In 1854 Mr. Fletcher returned to the United States via the Straits of Magellan and the 
Isthmus of Panama, thus making the entire tour of South America. Some months were 
spent in the United States, when he went again to Brazil iu 1855, travelling three thousand 
miles in distributing the Bible in that Empire. In 1856 he returned to the United States 
via Europe. 

In 1857, Brazil and the Brazilians, an illustrated imperial octavo, written conjointly by 



460 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

him and Rev. D. P. Kidder, D.D., was published simultaneously in the United States and 
England, and had an extensive sale in both countries. The leading Revi(!\v3 in America 
and England gave it most commendatory notices; and nearly all in the latter country fol- 
lowed the tone of the long article of the London Athenasuin, which began with this state- 
ment, that " Brazil was never before so fully, so faithfully, so artistically photographed." 
Prescott, the historian, who was more able to judge of a work on South America than any 
other writer, gave Brazil and the Brazilians the highest praise for its fulness and research. 

In 1868 the eiglith edition of this work was published by Little & Brown, of Boston, and 
Sampson Low & Co., of London. Mr. Fletcher in the last edition gave the result of four new 
tours made in Brazil during 1862-63-64r-65. 

In 1862 he travelled two thousand miles up the Amazon, and in this journey made inci- 
dentally such a collection of rare objects of natural history for Professor Agassiz, that it led 
to the correspondence between the savant and the Emperor of Brazil, which finally resulted 
in Professor Agassiz going to Brazil in 1865 for his extended explorations of that empire. 

In 1864-5, Mr. Fletcher was the means of inducing the Brazilian Government to join the 
United States in establishing a line of steamships between New York and Rio de Janeiro. 

From 1846 Mr. Fletcher became connected with the press, both secular and religious, as a 
correspondent, and as a contributor of editorials. ^Yhile finishing his studies in Europe 
he was a regular contributor to the New York Observer. His articles on ihe Waldenses, 
whom he visited, were not only widely copied in England and America, but were repub- 
lished in pamphlet form in Calcutta. 

The principal journals to which he contributed letters or editorials were the New York 
Evening Post, New York Journal of Commerce, the Providence Journal, the Boston Jour- 
nal, and the Boston Transcript. From time to time he contributed to the North American 
Review, Harpers Weekly, and other literary publications. 

For a number of years he occupied his winters in lecturing before lyceums in the United 
States and England. 

In 1869 he was appointed United States consul to Oporto, Portugal, where he is completing 
a work on Pompeii, on which he has been laboring for some years, and in the prosecution 
of which he has twice visited Italy. 

Raphael Semmes, 1810 , is a native of Maryland. He entered the navy of the United 

States, but at the outbreak of hostilities joined the Confederate service. At first Semmes 
was in command of the Sumter, but was transferred in 1862 to the notorious Alabama, in 
command of which vessel he ravaged American commerce for nearly two years, until he was 
defeated and the Alabama sunk off Cherbourg by the Kearsarge. Semmes himself escaped 
in an English steam-yacht. Before the Civil War, Semmes published two works, not very 
widely known: Service Afloat and Ashore during the Mexican War, and General Scott's 
Campaign in the Valley of Mexico. In 1864 he published his Cruise of the Sumter and the 
Alabama, in 2 volumes. The work has no special literary excellence; it ia merely the 
straightforward account of a brief but remarkable career. 

Elisha J. Lewis, M. D., 1820 , is a native of Philadelphia. He studied at Princeton 

College, and graduated at the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania Mr. Lesvis 
is the author of Hints to Sportsmen, and The American Sportsman, and the contributor of 
various articles to the Spirit of the Times. These works are valuable additions to the sport- 
ing literature of the country. 

RoLERT B. Roosevelt, 1829 , is a native and resident of New York, and President of 

the Now York Sportsmen's Club. Mr. Roosevelt has contributed one or two works to sport- 
ing literature: The Game Fish of North America; The Game Birds of the Northern States. 
He is also the author of the amusing sket:;h of Five Acres too Much, published in the New 
York Citizen, and editor of the works of Miles OReilly, (Charles Q. Halpine.) 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 461 

CnARLKS ASTOR Bristed, 1S20 , is a native of New York, and a grandson of John 

Jacob Astor. After graduating at Yale, he entered the University of Cambridge, England, 
and spent five years there in study. He h:ia written Five Years in an English University; 
The Upper Ten Thousand ; Letters to Horace Maun, being a reply to some strictures of Mr, 
Manu on the characters of Girard and Astor. 

Rev. Horatio Hastings Weld, 1811 , has done active service in the department of 

literature, particularly as a writer of essays and criticisms. Mr. Weld was born in Boston. 
He was originally a printer, then became editor, and after being for several years engaged 
in literary work, entered tlie ministry of the Episcopal Church. He is settled at present at 
Rivertun, N. J. He has published the following works: Corrected Proofs; Benjamin 
Franklin, a Biography; Life of Christ; Scripture Quotations in Prose and Verse; Star of 
Bethlehem ; Siicred Annual ; The Women of the Scriptures ; Scenes in the Lives of the 
Apostles; Scenes in the Lives of the Patriaixhs. 

William Elder, M. D., 1S09 , is a native of Pennsylvania and a resident of Philadel- 
phia. Dr. Elder is a popular speaker and lecturer, and has taken an active part in many of 
the philanthropic movements of the day. He has published a volume of miscellanies, 
called Periscopics ; also, A Life of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, 

Epes Sargent. 

Epes Sargent, 1812 , is known as the author of an admirable 

series of Readers and Speakers, as a critical editor of some of the standard 
English classics, and as the author of numerous original works, both prose 
and verse, of a high character. 

Mr. Sargent iaa native of Gloucester, Mass. He spent two years at Harvard, but did not 
graduate. He has been connected with the New England Magazine, the Boston Daily Ad- 
vertiser, Transcript, School Monthly, and several other periodici.ls. He also assisted S. S. 
Goodrich in the preparation of several of the Peter Parley Series. His own series of school- 
books is well known to the American schooMwy, and consists of several sets of Speakers, 
Readers, and Spelling-lx>oks. The Standard Speaker is pn>bably the most popular work of 
the kind in the country. The sale of tl><-<e school-lx)iks is estimated by the hundred thou- 
sand. Mr. Sarj^ent has also made critical editions of many of the English poets, among 
them Campbell, Rogers, Gray, Goldsmith, and Hood. The edition of Hood, published in 
l»^6o. in 6 vols , was the first complete edition of that writer ever made. Mr. Sargent has 
al>o written a Life of Henry Clay, and a Memoir of Benjamin Franklin. 

Among Mr. Sargent's strictly original works are several dramas and well-known songs 
and poems. The dramas are: The Bride of Genoa, Vela^co, Change makes Change, The 
Priestess. Among the poems may be mentioned a translation of Dies Ira?, the familiar song 
A Life on the 0;ean Wave. The Calm, The Gale, Tropical Weather. One of the most recent 
of Mr. Sargent's publications is Planchette, the Despair of Science. 

" Shells and Sea-Weeds is, I think, the best work in verse of its author, and evinces a 
fine fancy, with keen appreciation of the beautiful in natural scenery." — Pne. 

" He has written of the sea with more freshness and graphic power, with more true fancy 
and poetic feeling, than Falconer, or many others of a higher reputation." — }Vhip^le. 

89* 



462 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Henry Giles. 

Eev. Henry Giles, 1809 , acquired great celebrity twenty years 

ago, or more, as a public lecturer, chiefly on literary and historical topics. 
These lectures, with other of his writings, have since been published. 

In reply to some inquiries respecting his life, Mr. Giles has sent the following interesting 
account, which is given in his own words, with some slight abbreviations : 

" More than sixty years ago I was born near Gorey, County of Wexford, Ireland. My 
parents were very young — little acquainted with the ways of life, and soon after, their 
course was through a long and stern struggle. My father owned a small property, which 
gradually went from him by little and little, and which he had no faculty to increase — my 
mother had five hundred pounds, which went in the same way. My parents had, notwith- 
standing, good faculties and good breeding ; but these did not help them to prudence or 
economy, or any of the practical arts of life. I thus first became acquainted in my young 
days with the County of Wexford ; but afterwards with Dublin and parts adjacent to it. 

"But the portions of Ireland I became the most acquainted with, which I knew the most 
familiarly, and loved the most dearly, are parts of the County of Tipperary, the city of Cork, 
and the town of Belfast. My mother's family were Tipperary people, mostly in the neigh- 
borhood of Cashel and Clonmel, and among them the greater portion of my youth was spent. 
My mother had an only sister, whose family was large, whose means were small, whose 
husband contrived, notwithstanding, to keep a private tutor for his children. Among 
these much of mj- early life was passed; and in the school-room, though seldom aided by 
the teacher, I contrived to pick up a few scraps of early learning. 

"At this time I was a Catholic, though most of my relations and connections were mem- 
bers of the Church of England, except my aimt. With slight preparation and but early 
years, I became myself a tutor, in which situation I continued for about a j-ear. This was 
broken up by my mind changing in religious thonght to the doctrines of the Church of 
England. I lost my employment — but not the friendship of the family among whom I 
lived. They were Catholics ; but they always remained among the truest, the best, the 
most affectionate acquaintances with whom my life has been associated. 

" From this I went to live with my brother, who was then near Cork. I was not long hero 
when I was engaged in Cork to visit the poor, and to read the Scriptures among them. In 
the mean while, I had a single pupil, and advanced my own studies in mathematics, French, 
and classics ; most of which I have since forgotten. 

"I passed about three years in this place and in this career; then another change came 
over my mind, and altered my course. My belief changed to Uuitarianism. I went on, 
then, to Belfast. Here, for a time, I entered the Academy, and devoted the short while I 
remained there to the study of Greek and Latin. After this I went to Greenock in Scotland, 
■where I became a minister, and a preacher of Unitarianisni. I preached here for about three 
years. From this I passed to Liverpool, where I had been chosen minister of the Toxteth 
Park Chapel. After three or four years had passed over me there, then I first saw this 
country, in New York, in March, 1840. 

" I remained there almost unknown for a period of nearly three months. Letters of intro- 
duction I had to some, but after the delivery of one or two, I gave up the task. Gradually 
I became known. I wrote an article, and sent it to the Christian Examiner; it was ac- 
cepted and paid for. Tlie Examiner was at that time conducted by the Rev. William Ware, 
from whom I afterwards sliared a world of kindness. The Kev. F. Holland, then living 
in Brooklyn, was a man to whose goodness I became much indebted. He got me to lecture 
in Brooklyn, and gave his church for the purpose. I lectured on Robert Burns; and this 
■was the first lecture in my life for which I ■was paid. Mr. Brooks, a gracio*isly benignant 
man, who lived then in Greenwich Street, found me out, knew I was poor, and took me to 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 463 

his house, where I remained for six or seven weeks, until I received an invitation to Boston, 
whither I always had wished to go. The person who gave me that invitation to liis parents' 
home was the Rev. George Simmons, a remarkably fine young man, then in the freshness 
of his eIo()uence, fervor, and enthusiasm. 

" Here I was received with the most hospitable urbanity, and spent three weeks of geutiine 
and homelike tranquillity. At this time I became acquainted with tlie venerable Dr. 
Cliauuing, the Wares, and others of the best people in Boston and its neighborhood. I had 
already become kindly known in New York to the Rev. Dr. Dewej' and the Rev. Mr. Bellows. 

" Shortly after this, I prepared i\ few lectures, and began to give them with as much suc- 
cess as I could e.\pect. My course gradually enlarged, the lectures became more varied and 
more numerous, until lecturing became my only regular course of life. 

"About 1850, I married, in Bangor, a Miss Louise Lord, of Buckport, Me. We had three 
children, two girls and a boy. The youngest girl, about seventeen, was drowned while 
boating on the Penobscot, in Buckport, where she was staying with her grandmother. Her 
elder sister died of a decline nearly a year ago. The son, much the youngest, is now the 
one child spared to us. 

" About eight years ago a disease came on me, which gradually paralyzed me from toes 
to hips. I was in this helpless state from three to four years. Then unaccountably my 
power was restored, and age was upon me. So I am." 

The following is a list of Mr. Giles's publications : Lectures and Sketches, 2 vols. ; 
Christian Thoughts on Life, etc., a series of discourses, 1 voL; Illustrations of Genius iu 
Some of its Relations to Culture and Society, 1 vol.; Iluman Life in Shakespeare; Lectures 
and Essays on the Irish, and other Subjects. 

S. S. Cox. 

Samuel Sylvester Cox, 1824 , Member of Congress for many 

years from the State of New York, has considerable note as a public lec- 
turer, and is the author of several interesting volumes. 

Mr. Cox was born in Zanesville, Ohio. He attended the Ohio University at Athens, but 
subsequently became a student of Brown University, Rhode Island, wheie he paid his ex- 
penses by means of literary labor, graduating with honor in the class of 1846. His attach- 
ment to Rhode Island was shown the other day in Congress when the statue of Roger 
Williams was presented. 

After studying law and practising the profession for two or three years, Mr. Cox went to 
Europe, and on his return published The Buckeye Abroad, a well-written and popular book. 
Returning in 1853, Mr. Cox became owner and editor of the Columbus (Ohio) Statesman, the 
Democratic organ of the State. In 1855 he was tendered the secretaryship of legation to 
England, but declined, being unable satisfactorily to dispose of the Statesman. Stibsequently, 
in the same year, he accepted the secretaryship of legation to Peru, but on account of ill- 
health was compelled to resign. 

He was elected a Representative from the Columbus district to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty- 
si.xth. Thirty-seventh, and Thirty-eighth Congresses. During his Congressional career he 
ha.s served as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and as one of the Regents of 
the Smithsonian Institution. He is still a member of that board. He was the nominee of 
his party for Speaker against Mr. Colfax in the Thirty-eighth Congress. Although in the 
minority, he accomplished many reforms, especially as to the rules. On his motion, the 
Committee of Ways and Mean» was divided into three committees — Banking and Currency, 
Ways and Means, and Appropriations. He is a member of the Committee on Banking and 
Currency, and is charged with the duty of inquiring into the quostiuu of resumption of 
specie payments, of which he has been a persistent advocate. 



464 AMERICAN LITEEATURE, 

In March, IF^OS, Mr. Cox removed to New York city, and in that year published a book 
entitled Eight Years in Congress. 

Soon after the publie;ation of tlie above-mentioned work, Mr. Cox made another visit to 
Europe, spending his time while abroad chiefly on the islands and shores of the Mediterra- 
nean. He gave to tbe public, as the result of his observations, a volume, which was pub- 
lished in London and New York, entitled A Search for Winter Sunbeams, a work much more 
elaborate and philosopbical than books of travel generally. Mr. Cox also is a popular lec- 
turer oil literary themes. The latest subjects upon which he has appeared upon the plat- 
form were Spain, and the Poetry of Mechanism. 

In 116S, Mr. Cox was elected a Representative from the Sixth district of New York to the 
Forty-first Congress, and in 1S70 was re-elected over Mr. GreeJey. No member of the minority 
has taken a more important part in the proceedings than Mr. Cox. His principal efforts 
have been made on subjects connected with the tariff. Graduating under Dr. Wayland, at 
Brown University, he early became interested in discussions of that nature. One of his 
prize essays at college, which was successful, was upon the Repeal of the Coru Laws, in 
1846. He has been constant in protesting against the doctrine of Protection, presenting 
his views with elaborate statistics. Tbe revenue reform which he contemplates is sweep- 
ing, believing, as he does, that the custom-house system is a perpetual fraud on the body of 
the people. 

"Few men in Congress, certainly none on the Democratic side, ' hold the House' better 
than Mr. Cox. He is a ready, graceful, self-possessed, and vigorous debater, so mingling argu- 
ment with wit, and sarcasm with good-humor, as always to command attentiou and respect. 
He is a high personal favorite with members, irrespective of party, and is ever on the alert 
to serve his constituents, regardless of politics." — Harper's Weekly. 

Thomas S. Kirkbride, M.D., 1809 — — , is widely known for his skill in the treatment of 
the insane, and for his writings and reports on the subject of insanity. He is a native of 
Morrisville, Pa., and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He was Resident Phy- 
sician to the Friends' Asylum for the Insane at Frankford, in 1832; to the Pennsylvania 
Hospital, 1S33 and '34; to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, from 1841 to the pres- 
ent time (1872). His Annual Reports for the last thirty j'ears contain a vast amotuit of 
thoughts, suggestions, and information in regard to the treatment of the insane. Besides 
these Reports he has published: Appeal for the Insane; Construction, Organization, and 
General Arrangements of Hospitals for tlie Insane ; Essays on Insanity and the Cure of the 
Insane, in the American Journal of Insanity, etc., etc. 

Enoch C. Wines, D. D , 1806 , was born in Hanover, N. J., and educated at Middlebury 

College. He was for several years Professor of Mathematics in the United States Navy. He 
has been Principal of the Edgehill School at Princeton, N. J., Professor in the Philadelphia 
High-School, and in Washington College, Pa. For the last few years he has been engaged 
in the business of Prison Discipline. He is at present a Commissioner of the United States 
Ml that subject, and h;is convened an International Congress of Commissioners to concert 
measures of reform in the treatment of prisoners. He has published Commentaries on the 
Laws of the Ancient Hebrews; Two Years and a Half in the Navy; Hints on a System of 
Popular Education; How Shall I Govern My School ? — Letters to Scliool Children; Adam 
and Christ; Prelacy and Parity; The True Penitent; Treatise on Regeneration; Essay on 
Temptation ; The Promise of God ; and several voluminous Reports on Prison Discipline. 

John B. Gough, 1817 , the celebrated temperance lecturer, was born in England, and 

was originally an editor. He fell into luibits of intemperance, and was on the verge of de- 
struction, when he was rescued by the kind and judicious interposition of a friend of tem- 
perance, lie thenceforward devoted himself to the advocacy of total abstinence, and has 
lectured on this subject with unabated and ever -increasing interest, to large audiences, for 



FROM 18 50 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 4Go 

nearly thirty years. Asa popular lecturer, both on this subject and on others, he is un- 
rivalled. His only published work is his Autobiography. 

R. G. Pardee, 1811-18G9, was well known for his labors in the work of establishing Sun- 
day-schools. Though possessing only a limited education, and with little training as a 
writer, he produced two books of great value in his special department. The Sunday-School 
Worker, and Tlie Sabbath-School Index. Ue also wrote A Complete Manual for the Culti- 
vation of Strawberries. 

Edward Parrish, M. D., 1S22 , a native of Philadelphia, and a eon of the celebrated 

Dr. Joseph Parrish, is Professor in the School of Practical Pharmacy, Philadelphia. Besides 
some professional works, he has published The Phantom Bouquet, a Popul.ar Treatise on the 
Art of Skeletonizing Leaves, etc. ; and An Essay on Education in the Society of Friends. 



Mrs. C. H. Dall. 

Mrs. Caroline Healey Dall, , has written numerous books 

and pamphlets on subjects connected with social and political reform, and 
particularly on the subject of women's rights. Her productions have been 
marked by point and vigor, and show various reading and scholarship, as 
well as cultivated taste. She has not sought publicity, yet has not shrunk 
from it when loyalty to truth and duty has seemed to her to call for public 
action, whether through the press or on the platform. 

Mrs. Dall is the wife of a Unitarian minister, the Rev. Charles Dall, and daughter of Mr. 
Mark Healey, an India merchant of Boston. She was born and educated in that city, and 
at present resides there, although she has lived at different times in Baltimore, Washington, 
and Toronto. The following is a list of her publications: Essays and Sketches; Woman's 
Right to Labor; Life of Dr. Marin Zakrzurska; Historical Pictures Retouched, a correction 
of errors involving much labor; Old Testament Lectures; Sunshine, a lecture; The College, 
Market and Court; Egypt, a presentation of Bunsen; A Report on the Laws of Massachu- 
setts ; A Report on a Horticultural School for Reformed Women; Several Annual Reports 
on women's education, labor, and civil position; Essays on Confucius, on Biblical Criticism, 
etc.; Patty Gray's Journey, 3 vols. 

The book first named was written at the ageof eighteen, though not published until seven 
years later, in 1849. It consisted of a scries of moral and religious essays, written originally 
for her ow^n use in her Sunday-school class. 

Mrs. Dall h;\s the repvitatiou of being a tireless and conscientious student. In addition to 
her work as a writer and a lecturer, she has taken an active part in Sunday-schools and in 
various schemes of organized charity, and has had several classes of adults in philology. 
Biblical criticism, Herodotus, and Shakesi)eare, 

Rev. Charles Loring Brace, 1826 , a native. of Connecticut, has published several 

interesting volumes of travel: Norsefolk, Travels in Norway and Sweden; Home Life in 
Germany ; Hungary. Mr. Brace has been very active in the establishment of the Children's 
Aid Society, New York. 

William Wetmore Story, 1819 , is a native of Massachusetts, the son and biographer 

of Judge Story. Mr. Story studied at Harvard, and was admiited to tiie bar. In 1848, how- 
ever, he aban<loMed the profession, and gave himself up wholly to art. He is now one of the 
prominent sculptors in Rome, of which city ho is a permanent resident. His statues and 

2E 



466 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

busts have earned for him a world-wide reputation. Indeed it is not hazarding much to 
assert, to the shame of his countrymen, that Mr. Story's genius is far better appreciated in 
England and in Italy than in America. His statues of The Shepherd Boy, Little Red Riding 
Hood, Cleopatra, Sappho, are among the very best that modern art has produced. As an 
author, Mr. Story is known almost exclusively by two works: one, an excellent biography 
of his father, in two volumes; the other is Roba di Roma, a charming sketch on Walks and 
Talks about Rome. He has also published several occasional poems, and thereby, in the 
language of Francis Bowen, " narrowly escaped being a poet." He has contributed occa- 
sionally to The Atlantic Monthly. Before abandoning the legal profession, he published 
several able law treatises, on the Law of Contracts not under Seal, and un the Law of Sales 
of Personal Property. 

Rev. "William C. Dana, 1810 , pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Charles- 
ton, S. C, was born at Newburyport, Mass., and graduated at Dartmouth. He has published 
the following works: Hymns for Public Worship ; A Transatlantic Tour; Life of Rev. Dr. 
Samuel Dana; Fenelon on the Education of Daughters, a translation. - 

Albert Gallatin Macket, M.D., 1809 , is a native of Charleston, S. C, and a graduate 

of the South Carolina Medical College. He practised medicine for several years, but has 
been chiefly active in the Masonic fraternity, having been for many years Grand Secretary 
and Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina. He has published the following 
works: A Manual of the Lodge; The Book of the Chapter; Crj^ptic Masonry ; A Text-Book 
of Masonic Jurisprudence; Mackey's Masonic Ritualist; Lexicon of Freemasonry; The 
Mystic Tie ; The Symbolisms of Freemasonry. He edited also the Ahiman Rezon. 



Madame Le Vert. 

Mrs. Octayia Walton Le Vert, , of Mobile, has been long 

and widely known for her literary tastes and accomplishments, although 
her actual contributions to letters have been comparatively meagre. 

Mrs. Le Vert was born near Augusta, Ga., but in her infancy was moved to Pensacola, Fla. 
Her father. Col. George Walton, became Governor of Florida. In 1836, she was married to 
Dr. Henry's. Le Vert, of Mobile. She visited Europe in 1853, and again in 1855. In 18-8, 
she published Souvenii-s of Travel, iu two vols. Another book, Souvenirs of Distinguished 
People, was announced in 1859, but did not make its appearance. She has contributed occa- 
sional papers to the New York Ledger, and was said, in 1867, to have in preparation Sou- 
venirs of the War. 

Madame Le Vert's social position has given her rare opportunities for seeing distinguished 
persons, and her personal attractions, especially as a conversationist, have "received the 
warmest encomiums. One out of many equally competent witnesses is quoted: " Madame 
Le Vert is perhaps the only woman who has reigned as a belle in both hemispheres, has 
received the homage of chivalrous admiration, alike in the Northern and Southern sections 
of the United States, as well as in the courtly circles of Great Britain and continental 
Europe, and who, at the same time, has never been assailed by the shafts of envy or cal- 
umny. She has had a remarkable experience in wearing the crown of beauty aud genius — 
it has been without a thorn." — Mrs. E. F. Ellet. 

IIexrt Washington Hilliard, 1808 , was born in North Carolina, and educated at 

Columbia College, South Carolina. He studied law and practisi'd for a time. In 1831, he 
was elected Professor in the University of Georgia, and held the position three years. In 
1838 he entered the legislature of Georgia. In 1811, he was appointed Charge d/ Affaires to 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 467 

Belgium. From 1845 to 1851, he represented Georgia in Congress. lie afterwards became 
a Methodist preacher. He hiis published two volumes: Speeches and Addresses, I£5o; Do 
Vane, a Story of Plebeians and Patricians, 18C6. 

Professor La Borde. 

Maximilian La Borde, M. U., 1804 , Professor of Rhetoric and 

Literature in the University of South Carolina, has been for tliirty years 
conspicuously associated with the fortunes of that important State institu- 
tion. 

Dr. La Borde is of Huguenot descent. He was born at Edgefield, S. C, and graduated in 
1821 at the CJollege of which he has so long been an ornament. He first studied law, then 
medicine. After practising medicine for a time, and holding certain political preferments, 
he became, in 1842, a Professor in South Carolina College (now the University of South Caro- 
lina), and has remained connected with its fortunes ever since. Dr. La Borde has published 
three books: Introduction to Physiology; Story of Lethea and Verona; History of South 
Carolina College. The work last named is the chief literary work of his life, and is com- 
mended in the highest terms for the thoroughness of its information, and for its calm, 
philosophical, and conscientious spirit. 

Severn T. W.\ilis, 1816 , is a native and resident of Baltimore, and a graduate of St. 

Mary's College, in the class of 1832. He studied law with William Wirt. His publications 
are : Glimpses of Spain ; Spain, her Institutions, Politics, and Public Men ; Discourse on the 
Life and Character of George Peabody. 

The Holeombes. 

James P., and William H. Holcombe, brothers, belonging to a well- 
known family in Lynchburg, Va., have acquired about equal distinction in 
letters, though following different professions and moving in somewhat dif- 
ferent lines of thought. 

James P. Holcombe, 1820 , was educated partly at Yale, and partly in the University 

of Tirginia. He was, before the war, Professor in the University, his department being that 
of Civil, Constitutional, and International Law. The following are his publications : Selec- 
tion of Leading Ca.ses upon Commercial Law, decided by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, 1847 ; Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1818; The 
Merchant's Book of Reference for Debtor and Creditor, 1848; Address before the Alumni 
of the University of Virginia, 1853; Address before the State Agricultural Society, 1858; 
Literature in Letters, 1868. The work last named is a compilation of the famous Letters of 
the World, under classified heads. 

William H. Holcombe, M. D., 1825 , graduated at Washington College, Va., mil 

studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He practised for a time in Lynch- 
burg; moved to Cincinnati in 1850; then to the interior of Louisiana; and tinally to New 
Orleans, where he hxs lived ever since. 

In 1852, Dr. Holcombe gave up allopathy, and published, in 1867, a pamphlet, entitled 
How I Became a Homoeopath. In the introduction, he gives the following amusing account 
of himself: 

"I am the son of a doctor. I was born and bred in a medical atmosphoro. My father's 
office was the favorite place for my games when a little buy, and for my reading and study 



468 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

when a youth. The imposing shelves of imposing volumes, the big jars of hideous speci- 
mens preserved in alcohol, the pervading odors of paregoric and lavender, the bloody-looking 
map of the great sympathetic, on the wall, the long white skeleton grinning in the closet, 
and the mysterious box containing the detached bones of a baby's skull, made a strong im- 
pression on my childish imagination. The old brown saddle-b;tgs, with their increJ'ble 
stores of vials and packages and pill-boxes, excited my special admiration. Physicians were, 
in my estimation, tlie wLsest, and greatest, and best of mankind. I saw the whole faculty 
through the venerate<l form and character of my good father. "VVe differ as much from our 
owu selves at different times, as we do from each other. I have lived to question and scout 
the old oracles, to abandon the 'intensely respectable' path of routine, to discover in the 
old brown saddle-bags a Pandora's box of evils, and to see how much ignorance and mischief 
are sometimes concealed and consecrated under a medical diploma." 

Dr. Ht)]combe became also a Swedenborgian, and has written extensively for his new reli- 
gion, as well as for his professional faith. His writings have appeared mostly in the New 
Church Herald and in the North American Journal of Homoeopathy. He has written also on 
purely literary subjects for the Knickerbocker and the Southern Literary Messenger. 

The following is a list of his books : The Scientific Basis of Homoeopathy, 1855 ; Yellow 
Fever, and its Homoeopathic Treatment, 1856; Poems, 1860; Our Children in Heaven, Swe- 
denborgian, 1S68 ; The Sexes, 1869. 

Henry Barnard. 

Henry Baenaud, LL. D., 1811 , has acquired a national reputa- 
tion by his labors in the cause of popular education, and by his numerous 
and important publications on that subject. 

Dr. Barnard is a native of Hartford, Conn., and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1830. 
He studied law and practised for a, time. In 1837 he was elected a member of the State 
Legislature. In that body he effected a reorganization of the Common School system. He 
was for four years Secretary of the Board of School Commissioners. His first annual report, 
in 1839, was "a bold and startling document, founded on the most painstaking and critical 
inquiry." — Chancellor Kent. 

In his capacity as Secretary of the Board of Education in Connecticut, and afterwards in 
a similar position in Rhode Island, Dr. Barnard issued a series of reports, in which almost 
every topic connected with popular education was discussed with earnestness and ability. 
He hixs been a most diligent collector of facts and of the opinions of eminent educators at 
home and abroad, and has put forth these facts and opinions into convenient form in a 
number of volumes of great value. The principal of these are the following: School 
Architecture; Normal Schools in the United States and Europe; National Education in 
Europe; History of Education in Connecticut; Hints and Methods for the Use of 
Teachers. He published also the Connecticut Common School Journal, 4 vols. ; the Rhode 
Island Journal of Instruction, 3 vols., and the American Journal of Education, 4 vols. lie 
was appointed United States Commissioner of Education on the organization of that Bureau, 
and while in that office issued several elaborate reports. 

Frederick A. P. Barnard, D. D., LL.D., 1809 , is a native of Sheffield, Mass., and a 

graduate of Yale, of the class of 1828. He has written several works on educational topics, 
the principal ones being Letters on College Government and the Evils Inseparable from the 
American College System in its Present Form. Dr. Barnard taught for some years in insti- 
tutions for the Deaf and Dumb. He became a Professor in the University of Alabama in 
1818; President of the University of Mississippi in 1856; and President of Columbia College, 
Now York, in 1864. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 469 

Charles Nobthend, A. M., 1S14 . is a nati'^e of Newbury, M;i5S. He was educated at 

Dnnimer Academy, Newbury, and at Amherst. lie remained only two years at Amherst, 
but afterwards received from the college the honorary degree of A. M. lie taught twenty- 
years, mostly in Salem and Peabody, Mass., and afterwards was Superintendi-nt of Schools 
in Peabody. Still later he was Assistant State Superintendent. He is now in the real 
estate business, and lives at New Brifciin, Conn. He luvs published the following works: 
Teacher and Parent ; Teacher's Assistant ; American Speaker ; National Orator ; Entertain- 
ing Dialogues ; Little Speaker; Little Orator ; Child's Speaker. 



C. H. Wiley. 

Eey. Cal\tn Henderson Wiley, 1819 , of North Carolina, ac- 
quired reputation, first as a novelist, bv Alamance, and Roanoke, then as an 
advocate of popular education, and writer of a valuable school-book, and 
also as an earnest preacher of the gospel. 

Mr. Wiley is of Scotch-Irish descent. He was born in Guilford County, N. C, in what is 
known in that State and Virginia as the Piedmontese region. His ancestors were among the 
famous Regulators, who claim, in the battle of Alamance, to have struck the first blow for 
freedom on the American continent. He was fitted for college at Caldwell Institute, at 
Grtensboro', and graduated at the University of North Carolina, in 1S40. Having studied 
law, he commenced practice in Granville county. 

In 1S4S he was elected a member of the State Legislature, and took an active part in ad- 
vocating the policy of internal improvements. 

In 1545 he published his first novel, Alamance, embodying the interesting revolutionary 
traditions of the region in which he was born. This was followed by Roanoke, or Where is 
Utopia, a story illustrating esi)ecially the experiences of the English colonists along the 
coast. All these novels were racy of the soil, and were received with favor. 

Conceiving his duties, however, to be of a graver character than that of a romancer, Mr. 
Wiley, after the publication of Roanoke, abandoned novel-writing, and entered actively 
upon the business of popular education. His first work in this line was a popular His- 
tory of North Carolina, in a form suited to be used as a school reader. The work was a 
model of its kind, and has become, as it deserves to be, a classic in that region. Mr. Wiley 
purposed following up this work with a connected series of primary school books. But 
being elected Superintendent of Common Schools for the State, he relinquished his pur- 
pose and entered with all his energies upon the duties of the new office. 

The Common School system of North Carolina, begun in 1840, had only a feeble ex- 
istence until iSol, when the office of Sti\te Superintendent was created and Mr. Wiley waa 
elected first superintendent. He continued to bo re-elected every two years, and generally 
by a unanimous vote, although belonging politically to the old Whig party, and most of 
that time in the minority. 

In his position of State Superintendent Mr. Wiley achieved a great and noble work, 
and at the time when the war broke out, Noith Carolina was probably further ad- 
vanced in popular education, and mainly through his prudent and patriotic efforts, than • 
any other Southern State. He held on to his work, so far as circumstances would allow, 
all through the Mar. At the close of the war the system was suspended for the want of 
money. Mr. Wiley was made, however, a raeml)er of the Literary Fund, and wrote a 
pamphlet on The Swamp Lands of North Carolina, and was otherwise jictive in endeavoring 
to create the means of carrying on the work of public education. 

Mr. Wiley, at the time of his election to the Superinteudeucy, was an elder in the Prcsby- 
40 



470 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

terian church. He began, soon after that, to feel it to be his duty to enter the ministry. 
He was licensed to preach in 1854, and ordained to the full work of the ministry in 1866. 
In 1869, he wan invited by the American Bible Society to become its agent in East and 
Middle Tennessee, which position he still holds. 

Mr. Wiley's publications, in addition to those already named, are Scriptural Views of Na- 
tional Trials, 1863 ; The North. Carolina Form Book, and various tracts, essays, speeches, etc. 



John Ogden. 

John Ogden, A. M., 1824 , of the Ohio Central Normal School, has 

done good service in the cause of education, both by his labors as a teacher, 
and by his writings, particularly by his work on The Science of Education 
and Art of Teaching. 

Mr. Ogden was born near Mt. Vernon, 0. His early education was sadly neglected, so far 
at least as "schooling" was concerned. His father moved, when John was a mere child, 
to a part of the State — where Crestline now stands — that was almost an unbroken wilder- 
ness, and where no schools existed until the boy was nearly eleven years old. Here he 
spent his summers among the grand old forest-trees, his only educators, — working upon 
the farm; and his winters — except about two and a half months of the coldest weather, 
when he attended a very indifferent country school — in supplemental and preparatory 
work upon said farm. 

This continued until he was about nineteen years old, when, after teaching a winter school 
for $11 a month in his home district, his father gave him a cow, which he drove twelve 
miles and sold for $11. By these means he saved enough to attend a so-called high school, 
(whose chief claim to such distinction consisted in the fact that it was kept up-stairs,) two 
and a half months. The following summer, after teaching a winter school, he attended the 
Ashland Academy, then in charge of the lamented Lorin Andrews, one of Ohio's noblest 
educators. Here he received his first lessons in education. He remained at the Academy 
for three summers, teaching during the intervening winters to pay his way. 

After one summer's failure as a book agent, and one more winter's successful teaching, 
he was called, in the spring of 1849, to take charge of one of the Grammar schools of 
Columbus. He remained there three years, when, determined, although already twenty- 
eight years old, to improve his education by taking a regular college course, he entered 
accordingly the Wesleyan University, Delaware, 0. Before completing his college course, 
however, he was elected principal of the Normal Department which he had organized in 
said University, and he conducted the same for three years. 

He was then called by the Ohio State Teachers' Association to the principalship of the 
McNeely State Normal School, the first attempt made by Ohio teachers to establish a school 
of this kind. While there he received the honorary title of A. M. He remained there three 
years, when the teachers of the State, feeling it too great a burden, — the school being sus- 
tained by a voluntary percentage of each teacher's salary, — were compelled to abandon the 
project. He was then put into the field as general agent for the Ohio Journal of Education, 
and for Teachers' Institutes. These he continued one year, during which time he wrote his 
only published work, The Science of Education and the Art of Teaching. It was the fruit 
of his courses of Lectures in the Normal Schools and' in Teachers' Institutes. 

In the fall of 1858, he engaged with Hon. Henry Barnard, then Chancellor of the Wis- 
consin University, in a series of teachers' institutes for that State ; and in the following 
spring was elected Principal of the Minnesota State Normal School, at Winona, Minn. This 
school he organized and brought into successful operation. In the second year of the war, 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 471 

he resigned and entered the army. He w;is captured in 186i, and remained a prisoner until 
the close of the war. 

After the close of the war, he was employed in the service of the Freedmen's Bureau. In 
this capacity, he estahlished Fisk University, at Nashville, Tenn., for educating colored 
teachers, and acted for some time as its Principal. lie is at present Associate Principal of 
the Normal School at Worth ington, 0. 

Ira Mayhew, 1814 , is a native of Ellisburg, N. Y. He has taken a prominent part in 

the cause of education, and has been at different times Superintendent of Public Institu- 
tions in Michigan. He has published A Treatise on Popular Education for the use of Parents 
and Teachers. 



J. P. Wiekersham. 

James Pyle Wickeksham, LL. D., 1825 , State Superintendent 

of Public Schools of Pennsylvania, has been one of the most successful of 
American educational educators. lie has been a practical teacher ; he has 
had on a large scale the training of teachers ; he has for several years 
directed the educational system of one of the largest States in the Union ; 
he has written several volumes on the work of education, and in each 
department of effort he has been found equal to the occasion. 

Mr. Wiekersham was born in Chester County, Pa., of good old Quaker stock on both sides. 
His ancestor, Thomas Wiekersham, coeval with William Penn, came over with other Friends 
from Cheshire, in England, in 1705, and settled within two miles of the spot where the 
present Mr. Wiekersham was born. On the mothers side he came from the Pyle family, 
also Friends and early settlers. 

All his education, so far as received from schools, was obtained in Chester County, at the 
district schools, and at the Unionville Academy. In the latter he studied Latin, French, 
Mathematics, and natural science. At sixteen he expressed a desire to study for a profes- 
sion. Ills father oljected, wanting him on the farm, but gave him the option of setting out 
on his own resources. The plucky boy chose the latter, and since that time has made his 
own way in the world. He entered at once upon his career as a te;icher. 

In the winter of 1841-42, he taught a district school at twenty dollars a month, and then 
went back to the Academy as a student, and so alternated for several years, teaching an I 
studying, until 1S45, when he became Principal of the Marietta Academy, being then ju.^i 
twenty-one years of age. 

In 1854 he was elected the first County Superintendent of Lancaster County, and in 1855 iie 
began at Millersville a Nornuil Institute, which ended in the establishment of the Stale 
Normal S' hool at Millersville. This institution is one of the most successful of its kind in 
the United States. Its erection was the special work of Mr. Wiekersham. 

In ISGG, on the invitation of Gov. Curtin, Mr Wiekersham became State Superintendent 
of ( ommori Schools in Pennsylvania, in which position he still remains. As State Superin- 
tendent, his measures have been marked by energy and wisdom, and have given a great 
impulse to the cause of popular education. 

Besides numerous printed Addresses, and contributions to educational journals, Mr. 
Wickensham has published two books, which have had a large sale, and have taken their 
place among the standard works of the proleasiou : School Economy, and Methods of In- 
structiga. 



472 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Samuel S. Randall, 1809 , has been prominently connected, by his writings and other- 
wise, with the educational movements of the State of' New York. 

Mr. Randall was born at Norwich, Chenango County, N. Y. He was educated at Oxford 
Academy, 182.2-23, and Hamilton College, 1824:-25. He practised law for several years in 
Chenango County, 1633-36; iu 1836-37, he officiated as Dep. Clerk of Assembly at Albany. 
In May, 1837, he was appointed a clerk in the Department of Common Schools, and in 1838 
General Deputy Superintendent of Common Schools. This office he held until 1854. After 
a brief service as City Superintendent of the Brooklyn Public Schools, he was appointed 
^City Superintendent of the New York City Public Schools, and served during eight succes- 
sive terms of two years each, until June, 1870, when he tendered his resignation. He lias 
since devoted himself exclusively to literary avocations. 

In the fall of 18i6, in consequence of ill-health, growing out of the excessive labors de- 
volving upon him during the Free School Campaign, he retired for a brief period to a farm 
in Fairfax Cotinty, Va.. and subsequently was appointed to a clerkship in the War Depart- 
ment, under Adjutant-General Jones. This was during the administration of his cousin, 
Henry S. Randall, as Secretary of Sta'te and Superintendent of Common Schools. 

The following is a list of his publications : Mental and Moral Culture ; Incitements to the 
Study of Geology ; Educational Reader ; Rural Reader; Common School Reader; Primary 
Reader; Common School History and Manual ; History of the State of New York, for Acade- 
mies and Schools; History of the Common School System of the State of New York; First 
Principles of Popular Education and Popular Instruction. 

From 1845 to 1852, he edited the District School Journal, and was associate editor of the 
Northern Light, published at Albany. 

Mr. Randall has just completed A History of the Public School System of the City of New 
York, as a companion volume to History of the Common School System of the State of New 
York, 500 pages each, and has in MS., Walks with the Poets and Philosophers, and Conduct 
and Character, a series of Essays. 

W. S^ATinton. 

William Swinton, 1834 , Professor of English Literature in the 

University of California, first acquired general notoriety as a War Corre- 
spondent. Since the close of the war, he has returned to literary pursuits, 
where he is winning fresh laurels. 

Mr. Swinton was born in Salton, Scotland, April 23, 1834. When but a few months old, 
his parents removed to Edinburgh, and in 1844 emigrated to America. He pursued his 
scholastic studies at Amherst College, Mass. While still in college, he had become a Cfin- 
tributor to Putnam's Magazine. 

Immediately after graduation — having in the meantime married — he accepted the posi- 
tion of teacher in a female school in North Carolina. While so engaged, he continued assid- 
uously his literary labors, being a frequent contributor to the magazines of the day. At 
this time be produced in Putnam's Monthly the series of philological papers subsequently 
published under the title of Rambles Among Words. After two years residence in the 
South he removed to New York, where he continued to teach and write. 

In 1858, he was invited by Mr. Raymond to become the literary critic of the New York 
Times. In the columns of that paper his elaborate reviews of the most important publica- 
tions of the day, such as Darwin's Origin of Species, Buckle's History of Civilization, Wor- 
cester's Dictionary, Bancroft's History, etc., received more attention than is usually accorded 
to the fugitive essays of the daily journal. 

In 1862, Mr. Swiutou exchanged the editorial chair for the saddle, and became the War 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 473 

Correspondent for the New York Times. In this capacity he described most of the memO- 
raMe actions in Virginia. In 1866, tlie fruit of his military observations and reflections ap- 
peared in a volume entitled Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, 1 vol. 8vo, 640 pages. 
Concerning this volume, the London Saturday Review remarks: "All that can possibly 
be done from the Northern sources of information has already been done by Mr. Swinton, 
whose Army of the Potomac is a monument of military talent and industry, set forth with 
elaborate clearness of exposition and in a fine style of narrative. Americans compare Mr. 
Swinton to Napier, but his real place is nearer to that of Siborne, an historian whom he 
much resembles in his admirable study of details and his desire honestly to reconcile vary- 
ing testimony ; while he rises above Siborne in style, impartiality, and the power of historic 
grouping." 

In 1867 Mr. Swinton published The Twelve Decisive Battles of the War, an octavo volume 
of 5U0 pages. 

In 1869 he was elected to the chair of Belles Lettres in California University, where he 
still remains. On assuming his professional duties he began the preparation of a series of 
educational text books, among which two school Ilistories of the United States, together 
with a Word-Book of Spelling, and a Manual of "Word Analysis, have already been pub- 
lished, to be followed by a series of school geographies and grammars. 



Dr. Alden. 

Joseph Alden, D.D., LL.D., 1807 , of the New York State Nor- 
mal School at Albany, has long been prominently before the public as a 
leading educator and writer on educational topics. Dr. Alden's services, 
both literary and administrative, entitle him to the high rank which he 
holds as the head of one of the oldest and strongest of our State institutions 
for the education and training of teachers. 

Dr. Alden is a native of Cairo, N. Y., and a graduate of Union, in the class of 1829. He 
studied theology at Princeton. He has been successively Professor of Rhetoric in Williams, 
Prof, of Moral Philosophy in Lafayette, President of Jeffei-son, and for several years past 
Principal of the New York State Normal School in Albany. 

Dr. Alden, besides his large work as an educator, has been diligent in the use of his pen, 
writing almost constantly for the periodical press, and sending out at intei-vals instructive 
volumes for the benefit of his generation. His earlier works were mostly for tlie young. 
Among these may be mentioned, 'I'he Example of Washington ; Tlie Patriot's Fireside; Re- 
ligion in Fa.shionable Life, etc. Among his later writings are : Elements of Intellectual 
Philosophy ; The Science of Government in Connection with American Institutions, a text- 
book for academics and colleges ; The Citizen's Manual, being an abridgment of the preced- 
ing and intended for common schools ; Christian Ethics, or the Science of Duty. 

"Dr. Alden has the ability, and has had the courage, to write a small book on a large 
subject (Intellectual Philosophy). He has written in good English where many think it 
necessary to write in bad German. He has dared to write clearly, where obscurity and mist 
are too often taken as indications of depth. We need hardly add, we think he has made a 
good text-book. We know not a better on the subject of which he treats." — SuTiday School 
Times. 

Dr. Alden's methocl of treating the subject of Ethics, appealing directly to the Bible as 
authority in all matters of duty, commends itself to every Christian reader and teacher; 
while his clear, ai)hori,stic style of exprp.-ssion relieves the subject of much of the obscurity 
and fog in which it is u-sually and unnecessarily enveloped. 
40* 



474 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

John Seelt Hart, LL. D., 1810 , was born in Stockbridge. Mass. In 1812 the family 

removed to Luzerne County, Pa., and settled in the woods, two miles above where Scranton 
now stands. In 1823 they again removed to the neighborhood of Wilkesbarre. At the 
Wilkesbarre Academy he fitted for College. He entered the Sophomore class at Princeton 
in 1827, and graduated in 1830, with first honor and the valedictory. In 1830 and '31 he 
was Principal of Natchez Academy, Mississippi, one year. In 1832 he became Tutor, aud in 
1834 Adjunct Professor, of Ancient Languages, at Princeton. While in this position he 
gave much attention to the study of Hebrew and Arabic, studying the latter with Adflison 
Alexander. From 1836 to 1841, he had charge of the Edgehill School at Princeton. From 
1842 to 1859, he was Principal of the Philadelphia High School. In 1860 he was in the ser- 
vice of the American Sunday School Union. In 1861, he left the Union, and published on 
his own account the Sunday School Times, which he had originated while in the society. 
From 1862 to 1871, he was connected with the New Jersey State Normal School at Trenton, 
the first j'ear as head of the Model Department, and the rest of the time as Principal of the 
whole institution. In 1872 he returned to Princeton, as Professor of Rhetoric and of the 
English Language and Literature. Before leaving Trenton, he had for several winters given 
a course of lectures in the College on English Literature. 

He has been engaged in teaching for more than forty years. In the institutions under 
his immediate control, and not counting students in College, he has had the charge of more 
than seven thousand pupils. 

He began writing for the Princeton Review in 1835, during the time of his first connection 
with the College. He wrote for this review, at different times, the following articles: 
Jenkyn on the Atonement; The English Bible; Tyndale's New Testament; The Revised 
Webster ; An Argument for Common Schools ; Normal Schools ; The English Language. 

In 1844, he edited the Pennsylvania Common School Journal. In 1845 and '46, he edited 
the philological volume of the United States Exploring Expedition, Mr. Hale, the author 
of the volume, being absent in Europe. From January, 1849, to July, 1851, he edited Sar- 
tain's Magazine. He edited also during this period eight or ten annuals of a literary char- 
acter, The Iris, The Snow Flake, The Christian Keepsake, etc. 

On selling out the Sunday School Times, to go to Trenton, in 1862, he was retained as 
Senior Editor, and he continued to write the leading editorials of that paper weekly to the 
close of 1871. 

His separate publications, apart from his editorial labors, have been as follows : Spenser 
and the Fairy Queen, 512 pp. Svo ; Female Prose Writers of America, 536 pp. 8vo ; English Lit- 
erature, 636 pp. 8vo ; American Literature, 636 pp. Svo ; Composition and Rhetoric, 384 pp. 
12mo; First Lessons in Composition, 168 pp. 12mo; English Grammar, 192 pp. 12mo; Intro- 
duction to English Grammar, 125 pp. 12mo; Class Book of Poetry, 384 pp. 12mo; Class Book 
of Prose, 384 pp. 12mo ; Constitution of the United States, a text-book for schools, 100 pp. 
12mo; White's Universal History, edited for school use; Greek and Roman Mythology, a 
Latin reader ; In the School Room, a text-book on the theory and practice of teaching, 276 
pp. 12mo ; Mistakes of Educated Men, 191 pp. 18mo ; Pennsylvania Coal and its Carriers, a 
series of commercial pamphlets, 120 pp. 8vo; Thoughts on Sabbath Schools, 215 pp. Vlmo; 
The Sunday School Idea, 416 pp. 12mo ; Removing Mountains, life-lessons from the Gospels, 
306 pp. 12mo; The Golden Censer, thoughts on the Lord's Prayer, 144 pp. 12mo ; Prayers for 
the School Room, in preparation. 

His Annual Reports of the Philadelphia High School and of the State Normal School at 
Trenton, covering a period of twenty-five years, fill more than three thousand closely printed 
octavo pages. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 475 

Alfred Holbrook, 1816 , was born in Darby, Conn., son of the well-known philan- 
thropist, Josiah Holbrook, who did so much in the way of invention and of unselfish labor 
towards popularizing scientific apparatus, and introducing it into the common schools of the 
country. The education of Alfred, so far as it has not originated with himself, was received 
at Groton, Mass., where at the age of eleven he was placed under the tuition of Eliza Wright. 
Mr. Holbrook, though not gifted with much physical health, has a strong will and an ex- 
traordinary inventive facultj*. This latter, which might have won him fame and fortune in 
the line of mechanical inventions and civil engineering, has been devoted to the work of 
education. By his own unaided exertions, and by the magnetism of his character and his 
labors, without either private contributions or State endowment, he has built up, at Leb- 
anon, 0., a large educational establishment, chiefly for the education and training of 
teachers. In the prosecution of this work, he has prepared for the use of the pupils a series 
of Lectures on the work of the school-room, which embodies bis educational views, and 
■which is thus far his only separate publication. 

VII. NOVELS AND TALES. 

Ha^A^thorne. 

Natha:niel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, stands by general consent at the 
head of the novelists of the present period. His Scarlet Letter, House of 
the Seven Gables, and Marble Faun place him beside the great masters, 
not of the age only, but of all time. 

Mr. Ilawtliorne was born at Salem, Mass., and graduated at Bowdoin in 1825, in the same 
class with Longfellow, and in the class next after that of Franklin Pierce, afterwards Presi- 
dent of the United States. After quitting college, Mr. Hawthorne lived for many years at 
Salem. From 1838 to 1841, he was weigher and ganger in the Boston Custom-House. He 
was next in the Brook Farm Association, at West Roxbury, with Ripley and others, where 
a community of literati and philosophers attempted to carry out an ideal scheme of rural 
independence by the labor of their hands. In 1843 he retired to Concord and settled in the 
"Old Manse " which is celebrated in his stories. From 1846 to 1850, he was surveyor of the 
port of Salem, by appointment of President Polk, and from 1853 to 1857 Consul at Liverpool, 
by appointment of President Pierce. The friendship between Hawthorne and Pierce, begun 
at college, was terminated only by the death of the former. With the exception of the seven 
years spent in the discliarge of his official duties at Salem and Liverpool, Hawthorne's life 
was for the most part passed in quiet seclusion. 

In 1837 he published his Twice-Told Tales, in part a collection of sketches that had for- 
merly appeared in an annual called The Token ; hence the name. In 1846 appeared Mosses 
from an Old Man-e, a similar collection, giving reminiscences of his residence at Concord. 

In 18:)0 appeared the Scarlet Letter, containing reminiscences of the old Custom House 
at Salem; in 1851, The House of the Seven Gables; and in 1852, The Blithedale Romance, 
picturing his life at Brook Farm. These were followed by The Snow Image and several vol- 
umes for the young: Grandfather's Chair, True Stories, Tanglewood Tales, etc. In 1860 
appeared The Marble Faun ; soon after, a series of sketches of English life, called Our Old 
Home. 

Hawthorne produced nothing in verse, yet he has been rightfully styled the greatest crea- 
tive genius of America. CertJiinly no other writer has succeeded so completely in spiritual- 
izing American life, in pervading it with the inner vitality of passion and reflection. His 
characters are apparently real, and yet separated from the commonplace by an impassable 
gulf. The reader feels himself tmnsported into a new world, under the guidance of a som- 
bre and powerful genius. His style, indeed, is morbid, at least in its geueral effect«. It 



476 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

produces the impression of a life utterly vain and hopeless, with a dark background of aveng- 
ing fate. Yet as a master of style, Hawthorne is inimitable. No one ever wrote purer Eng- 
lish, or used words more delicately and powerfullj'. 

llawthorue's greatest works are unquestionably The Scarlet Letter, The House of the 
Seven Gables, and The Marble Faun. Each of these is full of passages, long and intense, 
where the reader feels that every word is a thought or a picture. The characters are vsun- 
derfully defined by a succession of clear, delicate strokes, and move in an atmosphere of 
brooding fancy. One who feels himself strong enough to overcome the spell exerted by 
Hawthorne's melancholy genius, can find no better model for studies in style .and expression. 

In his personal lite, Hawthorne seems to have been of a very shy, retiring disposition, 
known only to a few intimate friends, and by them and by his own family loved as a 
pure-hearted, genial, rather playful coinpanion. 

Since Hawthorne's death his diary has been published by his widow, under the title of 
Passages from his American and English Note Books; it is full of choice bits of description 
and shrewd observation. 

A complete edition of his works has been published, in 18 vols. 

"When a new star arises in the heavens, people gaze after it for a season with the naked 
eye, and with such telescopes as they may find. In the stream of thought which flows so 
peacefully deep and clear through the pages of this book, we see the bright reflection of a 
spiritual star, after which men will be fain to gaze ' with the naked eye and with the spy- 
glass of criticism.' This star is but newly risen ; and ere long the observations of numerous 
star-gazers, perched upon arm chairs and editors' tables, will inform the world of its magni- 
tude and its place in the heaven of poetry, — whether it be in the paw of the Great Bear, or 
on the forehead of Pegasus, or on the strings of the Lyre, or on the wing of the Eagle. Our 
own observations are as follows : To this little work we would say, ■ Live ever, sweet, sweet 
book. It comes from the hand of a man of genius. Everything about it has the freshness 
of morning and of May. These flowers and green leaves of poetry have not the dust of the 
highway upon them. They have benn gathered fresh from the secret places of a peaceful 
and gentle heart. There flow deep waters, silent, calm, and cool ; and the green leaves look 
into them and God's blue heaven.' The book, though in prose, is nevertheless written by a 
poet. He looks upon all things in the spirit of love, and with lively sympathies ; for to him 
external form is but the representation of internal being, all things having a life and end 
and aim." — Henry W. LongfeUoiv's Review of Twice-Told Tales. 

" Another characteristic of this writer is the exceeding beauty of his stjie. It is clear as 
running waters are. Indeed he uses words merely as stepping-stones, upon which, with a 
free and youthful bound, his spirit crosses and re-crosses the bright and rushing stream of 
thought. Some writers of the present have introduced a kind of Gothic architecture into 
their style. All is fantastic, vast, and wondrous in the outward form, and within is myste- 
rious twilight, and the swelling sound of an organ, and a voice chanting hymns in Latin, 
which need a translation for many of the crowd. To this we do not object. Let the priest 
chant in what language he will, so long as he understands his own mass-book. But if he 
wishes the world to listen and be edified, he will do well to choose a language that is gen- 
erally understood." — Henry W. Longfellow, in North American Review. 



Theodore Winthrop. 

Theodore Winthrop, 1828-1861, a young man of brilliant promise, is 
known chiefly by his posthumous novel of Cecil Dreeme. 

Mr. Winthrop was a descendant from old Governor Winthrop on one side and from Jona- 
than Edwards on the other, and numbered in his other ancestry seven Presidents of Yale Col- 
lege. He was born at New Haven, and graduated at Yale, in the class of 1848. He travelled in 
Europe in 1849-50-51 ; resided two years in Panama, exploring extensively Southern and 



FROM 1850 TO THE I^RESP:NT TIME. 477 

Central America; joiiiod the famous Seventh Regiment of New York on t]ie breakinj; out 
of the war, and was killed in the first campaign, at the battle of Big Betliel. Though so 
yoiuig a man. he had already published several articles which pointed liira out as a man of 
mark, and he left in manuscript several books which were published posthumously : Cecil 
Dreeme; John Brent; Edwin Brothertoft; The Canoe and the Saddle, adventures among 
the Northwestern rivers and forests; Life in the Oi)on Air. Mr. Winthrop's writings show 
a freshness, a versatility, and a vigor which make his early death a loss greatlj' to be deplored. 
Had he lived, there cau be little doubt that he would have become one of the great lights 
of American letters. 

Henry D. Thoreau. 
Henry D. Thoreau, 1817-1862, was a thorough humorist, in the old 
English sense of a man who indulges in humors. 

Thoreau was born in Concord, Mass., and was graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1837. 
He taught school for a time, and afterwards practised land-surveying for several years. One 
of his •' humors " was to make long rambles, usually alone, through out-of-the-way districts, 
and give minute descriptions of what he saw, and his own thoughts upon it. Once, accom- 
panied by his brother, he went down the Concord River to its junction with the Merrimac, 
then up the Merrimac to its source, then backward to his starting point, at the town of 
Concord. This voyage, occupying a week, was performed in a boat which was built by the 
brothers for the purpose, and which was rowed, pulled, dragged, or propelled by wind, ac- 
cording to circumstances, the travellers resting at night under a tent which they carried 
with them. The incidents of this journey, to the minutest particulars, were written down, 
from hour to hour, mingled with reflections, and were published in a volume called A Week 
on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers Another fancy still more curious occupied him for a 
period of two years and two months Taking an axe and a few dollars, and the clothes 
which were upon him, he went into the woods, on the edge of a pond, and unaided, except 
at the raising, built himself a house, fifteen feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet high, the 
whole costing $28,121^, and lived there by himself over two years, at a total net cost of 
$25.21%! Having abundance of leisure, he read Homer, watched the birds, bees, ants, 
squirrels, and other "small deer," and meditated, — narrating and describing from day 
to day. This odd life was the origin of his next book, Walden, or Life in the W^oods. His 
other works all partake, more or less, of the character of these two: Excursions in Field 
and Forest; The Maine Woods; Cape Cod; A Yankee in Canada; Walking; Autumnal 
Tints; W^ild Flowers, etc. With Thoreau's wonderfully acute power of observation, and his 
fine taste and skill in word-painting, he might have made a first-chiss naturalist. His works 
are to the last degree original and quaint. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., LL. D., 1815 , son of the poet and 

e.ssayist mentioned in the preceding chapter, though not following literature 
as a profession, has attained no little eminence in that line. His Two Years 
before the Mast, in particular, has had an uncommon popularity. 

Mr. Dana is a native of Cambridge, Mass., ami a graduate of Harvard, of the class of IS37. 
While in college he suffered from weakness of the eyes, which compelled him to stop study 
for a time. He took the occasion to make a voyage of two years, which formed the basis 
of his most popular work. Two Years belorc the Mast. His voyage took him to Calilbrnia, 
then a wild, almost unknown region. His nirrative gives a vivid deWPiption of his expe- 
rience on ship and shore, and hiis been a ^ort of Itobinson Crusoe, both in England and 
America. While the book was in manuscript, he sold the copyright to the jiuMisliers for 
$250, and they held it for the full term of tWBnty-«ij{ht years. Ou its expiration, iu 1808, 
he renewed it for his own benefit. 



478 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mr. Dana made a trip to Cuba in 1859, and on his return published his book. To Cuba and 
Back. In 1859-60, he made a voyage round the worid, visiting California, Sandwich Islands, 
China, Japan, Ceylon, British India, and Egypt, returning through Europe. 

Mr. Dana resides in Boston. He is a lawyer, and has a large and lucrative practice, lie 
was United States Attorney for Massachusetts from 18(51 to 1866. 

Mr. Dana's publications, in addition to those named, have been chiefly legal, though not 
exclusively so. The following are the chief: Seaman's Friend, a manual of sea usages and 
law ; Letters on the Somers Mutiny ; Life of Major John B. Yinton ; Poems and Lectures 
of Washington Allston, edited with a biographical sketch; Eulogy on Edward Everett; 
Enemy Property and Enemy Territory, a tract published in 1S63 ; Letters on Italian Unity, 
and the Relative Rights of Italy and the Catholic Church, 1871. His other publications 
have been almost exclusively legal. 

Donald G. Mitchell, — '' Ik Marvel." 

Donald Grant Mitchell, 1822 , better known as " Ik Marvel," 

has charmed his countrymen by the exquisite sketches of life contained in 
the Reveries of a Bachelor and in Dream Life. 

Mr. Mitchell is a native of Norwich, Conn. He graduated at Yale in 1841. Feeble health 
obliged him to abandon professional life, and to give himself up to those rui'al employments 
which have thrown so pleasant a tint on many of his writings. 

His earliest works were Fresh Gleanings fi'om the Old Fields of Europe, and The Battle 
Summer, or Paris in 1818. 

The two works by Avhich he is almost exclusively known, are The Reveries of a Bachelor, 
and Dream Life. Rarely have any books better deserved their title. They are a collection 
of sketches of life and character, painted in such a dream-like, delicate manner as to make 
the reader lose for the time being the full consciousness of his own reality. They might, 
on that account, be placed among the dangerous books for the young. The thought and 
sentiments in them are the very essence of purity and refinement, but the fascination which 
they exercise over a sympathetic imagination is almost too strong. 

Mr. Mitchell's style is exquisite in its perfect adaptation to the subject. It is simple, 
melodious, with words that paint, and words that suggest. It has called forth a number of 
imitators more or less successful, no one of whom, however, is comparable to the original. 

Mr. Mitchell was at one time Consul at Venice, and meditated writing a history of that 
republic. The plan, however, has not been carried out. Of late, he has devoted himself to 
writing upon agricultural and semi-agricultural themes, and has contributed largely to the 
several magazines. 

Besides the works already named, he has published the following : Lorgnette ; Fudge 
Doings ; Seven Stories ; Wet Days at Edgewood ; Rural Studies ; Dr. John's. 

Richard B. Kimball. 

Richard Burleigh Kimball, 1816 , has published a number of 

works, of which the best known is St. Ledger, or The Threads of Life. 

Mr. Kimball is a native of Lebanon, N. H., and a graduate of Dartmouth, of the class of 
1834. After studying law for a time, he visited Europe and remained some months abroad; 
returning, he commenced practice at Waterford, N. Y., but soon removed to New York city. 
There, besides his professional pursuits, he gave much of his time to literature, writing 
for the Knickerbocker, Putnam, International, Continental, and Atlantic Monthly. He has 
made twenty-eight voyages across the Atlantic. 

His separate publications are the following : St. Ledger, or The Threads of Life ; Romance 
of Student Life Abroad ; Cuba aod the Cubans ; Letters from Cuba ; Letters from England ; 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 479 

In the Tropics; Was He Successful? Undercurrents; Revolutions in Wall Street; Henry 
Powers Banker; To-Day. 

" Kimball's style is free and easy. lie is always perspicuous, o{|tcn energetic, and at times 
beautiful. His naturalness and freedom from atfectation charm the youthful reader, while 
to the matnrer student they display a degree of artistic skill. Graceful narration and 
smooth expression, joined to a just ai)preciation of human character in its truest aspects, 
will find for him a multitude of admiring readers." — The Darlmouth. 

J. R. Gilmore, — ^' Edmund Kirke." 

John R. Gilmore, 1823 , under the name of "Edmund Kirke," 

became widely known during the war by his novels descriptive of the con- 
flict, especially by his book, "Among the Pines," the sale of which was 
very large. 

Mr. Gilmore was born in Boston. He is of Scotch extraction, being lineally descended 
from a sturdy Covenanter, who, taken prisoner -while fighting for the Pretender at the 
battle of CuUodcn, escaped from his captors, and fled to this country, where he settled at 
Wrentham, Mass., about twenty-five miles west of Boston. From the same ancestor have 
sprung John A. Gilmer of Georgia, Robert Gilmor of Baltimore, Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore of 
Ohio, and Joseph A. Gilmore, late Governor of New Hampshire. 

Losing his father at a very early age. Mr. Gilmore was early thrown upon liis own resources, 
and leaving school at eleven, entered a counting-room to fit himself for a commercial life. 
A passion for books, which he had early imbibed, did not, however, forsake him. His school 
studies were continued of evenings, under the supervision of a wise and accomplished 
mother, and his leisure hours during the day always found him with a book in his hand. The 
duties of the counting-room were not neglected, but his proficiency in study was so great 
that, at fifteen, he passed the preliminary examination for admission to Harvard University. 
Ills design of entering college was, however, soon abandoned, from the necessity that now 
pressed upon him of providing altogether for his own support and that of his invalid mother. 

He early began to write verses, and about this time one of his effusions having attracted 
the notice of the editor of the Saturday Evening Gazette (then the leading literary journal 
of New England), he was invited to contribute to it regularly. This he did, with more or 
less regularity, till the firm to whom he was apprenticed admitted him, at the age of nine- 
teen, a partner in their business. 

The house was largely engaged in the Southern trade, and among Mr. Gilmore 's duties 
was an annual tour among the correspondents of the firm, who were planters, engaged in 
the raising of cotton, turpentine, and gi-ain in the South Atlantic States. Thus he acquired 
that knowledge of the South and its people which is shown in his books. 

At the age of twenty-five, Mr. Gilmore left Boston, and in connection with one of the 
older members of the firm to which he was indentured when a boy, established in New York 
the house of J. R. Gilmore & Co., which for many years did a leading business with North 
and South Carolina. Georgia, and Florida. The firm was largely engaged in shipping, and 
at this time owned the brig Echo, which, on the breaking out of the war, being caught in a 
Southern port, was seized upon by the Confederates and made to do service as the first pri- 
vateer that i)reyed upon Northern commerce. 

In the spring of 18o7, Mr. Gilmore retired from mercantile business with a comfortable 
competency, and devoted himself to the management of a large landi-d property, near New 
York, in New Jersey. He was thus engaged till 18C1, when tlie fall of Fort Sumter took 
place. Ho was on a flying visit to the South at the time, and actually domiciled in the 

house of the Southern gentleman who figures as Colonel J in his book, "Among the 

Pines." He left at once for home, but stopped on his way at Washington, to see Robert J. 
Walker. 



480 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In connection with Mr. Walker and Charles G. Leland, Mr. Gilmore soon commenced in 
Boston the publication of the '• Continental Monthly," devoted to the doctrine of Emanci- 
pation, as distinguished from Abolition. For this he wrote the series of papers called 
•'Among the Pines," which afterwards, collected into a hook, had so wide a circulation. 
This was quickly followed by "My Southern Friends," and "Down in Tennessee," books of 
which, in the short space of one year, there were sold upwards of 100,000 copies. Be'^ides 
these, Mr. Gilmore wrote fluring the war "On the Border," a story descriptive of the cam- 
paign in East Kentucky; and two books for boys, entitled, "Among the Guerrillas," and 
"Patriot Boys and Prison Pictures;" together with numerous articles for the Atlantic, 
Galaxy, Harper's, and Lippincott's magazines. In addition, Mr. Gilmore wrote very many 
of the war songs and ballads which appeared in the " Continental." Some of these, as " The 
London Times on American Affairs," and "The New Yankee Doodle," were widely copied. 

Since the war Mr. Gilmore has published but one book, "The Life of Jesus, according to 
his Original Biographers," a mouotessarou, which blends into one narrative the four his- 
tories found in the Gospels. 

Of late years he is understood to have altogether laid aside his pen, to devote himself to 
the repair of his fortunes, which liad been seriously injured by losses occasioned by the war. 
He is now residing in Newark, N. J. 

THREE DAYS. 

So much to do, so little done! 
Ah! yesternight I saw the sun 
Sink bearaless down the vaulted gray, 
The ghastly ghost of Yesterday. 

So little done, so much to do! 
Each morning breaks on conflicts new. 
But eager, brave, I'll join the fray, 
And fight the battle of To-day. 

So much to do, so little done ! 
But when it's o'er — the victory won. 
Oh, then, my soul ! this strife and sorrow 
Will end in that great, glad To-morrow. 

Henry Morford. 

Henry Morford, 1823 , acquired during the war considerable 

notoriety by the publication of Shoulder-Straps, The Days of Shoddy, and 
other novels, etc., etc., descriptive of the times. 

Mr. Morford was born at New Monmouth, Monmouth County, N. J. He is son of Judge 
William Morford, of that place. He engaged in mercantile pursuits in early life, though 
he contributed to many publications from the age of seventeen. He first entered upon edi- 
torial life in 1852, by establishing the New Jersey Standard at Middletown Point, now Mata- 
wan. He removed to New York in 1S56; and between that time and IS'68 was connected 
with the editorial management of several papers, among others, the New York Courier, 
Dispatch, Leader, Atlas, Frank Leslie's, etc. He made a tour in Europe in 1865, with the result 
of a book of travels, called "Over Sea; " another in 1867 (Paris Exhibition, etc.\ producing 
a second volume, " Paris in "67 ; " a third tour in 1868; a fourth and fifth in 1870 and 1871 ; 
and a sixth in the summer of 1871, — all the four latter in connection with the authorship 
of "Morford's SliortTrip Guide to Europe," now published every year. He is establishing, 
for correspondent continental publication, a " Short-Trip Guide to America," with others of 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 481 

the series to follow. He published a volume of Pooms in 1859, under the title of " Rhymes 
of Twenty Years," and has another volume ready' for the press, to be called '•Rliymes of au 
Editor." 

Mr. Morford has published the following novels: 1863, Shonlder-Straps ; 1864, The Days 
of Shoddy, and The Coward ; 1866, Utterly Wrecked ; 1871, Only a Commoner. 

lie published a volume of humorous sketches, Sprees and Sphvshes, 1862. He has written 
several plays, with only mcxlerate success ; the best kuown of them being a tragedy, The 
Merchanfs Honor, and an Irish drama, The Bells of Sliaudou. 

Mr. Morford was a clerk in the New York Common Pleas from 1861 to 1808. 

WiLUAM Henry Peck, 1830 , is an exceedingly prolific writer of novels and novelettes. 

He was born in Augusta, Ga. He studied for five years in a boarding-school at New Haven, 
then entered the Baptist College at Georgetown, Ky., and finally graduated at Cambridge, 
in 1853. In 1856, he was elected Professor of Belles Lettres in the Universiry of Louisiana. 
In 18G0, he became President of the Masonic Female College, Greenville, Ga., which position 
he resigned in 1SG3 for a professorship in Le Yert Female College, at Talbotton, in the 
same Stjxte. 

Prof. Peck htis published the following : Antoinette de Bordelaire ; The Brother's Ven- 
geance ; The Moctoroon, a burlesque on Bourcicaults Octoroon; Virginia Glencaire; Luke 
Hammond; The Renegade; The Conspirators of New Orleans; The Phantom; The Con- 
federate Flag of the Ocean ; The Maids and Matrons of Virginia; Bertha Seely ; Beatrice; 
Roderic Harrow; Charles Marion; Marina; The McDonalds, or the Ashes of Southern 
Homes; besides "an immense number of miuor tales." 

" Prof. Peck writes with great ease, and great rapidity ; and for the millions — the blood- 
and-thunder-loving millions — he gives us strong preparations of mingled dangers, dungeons, 
and daggers; assassinations and assignations; lawsuits, suicides, and seductions; graves, 
greed, ghosts, and guilt ; skeletons, corpses, and capsules ; gorgons, spectres, and chimeraa 
d i r e ." — J". Wood Da v Cdson. 

W. Gilmore Simms. 
William Gilmore Simms, LL. D., 1806-1870, of Charleston, S. C, was 
one of the most prolific of American romancers. His novels are mostly 
founded on local traditions, giving tliem an historical character and value, 
and have been in good repute. 

Mr. Simms was born in Charleston, S. C, and was a resident of that city most of his life. 
He did not enjoy the advantage of a college education, but by private study fitted himself for 
the bar, and was admitted in 1828. He did not practice, however, but engaged early in lit- 
erary pursuits, and gave himself up to authorship almost exclusively for the hist forty years 
of his life. 

His best and best-known poems are, Atlantis, Lays of the Palmetto, and Areytos, or Songs 
and Ballads of the South. 

His forte, however, lies in Iiis descriptions of scenes and incidents of the American Revo- 
lution. These he has embodied in a series of widely read novels and romances, of which 
the following are the chief : Tlie Partisan; Mellicbainpe ; Katharine Walton; The Scout; 
The Black Riders of theCongaree; The Foragers; Martin Faber ; The Book of My Lady; 
Carl Werner ; Castle Dismal ; the Wigwam and the Cabin ; Count Julian ; The Damsel of 
Darien ; Eutaw, etc. 

The Yeniassee is founded upon the writer's personal knowledge of the Indian character. 

The Lily and the Totem is a story of the Huguenots in Florida. Other of Mr. Simms's works 

are founded on local and border history, such as Guy Rivers, Border Beagles, the Golden 

Christmas, etc. Xu addition to theao works of fiction, ho has published A History of South 

41 2F 



482 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Carolina, a Geograpli}' of tlie State, and a Controversial pamplilet on South Carolina in tl 
Revolution, and also biograpliies of Captain Mariou, John Smith, and Nathaniel Greene. Mr. 
Sirams contributed a numbe^ of articles to Appletons Encyclopaedia, aud many to tin- 
Southern Quai-terly, Southern Literary Messenger, aud other reviews. 

Clifforb Anderson Lanier, 184-1 , a native of Georgia, has published two novels, 

Thorn-Fruit, and Two Hundred Eales. — Sidney Laniek, , brother of the preceuiug, 

and principal of an academy at Practville, Ala., published in 18G7 a novel called Tiger-Lilie.-*. 
IIo is author also of several occasional poems. 

Col. JoHJf Saunders Holt, 1S26 , is a native of Mobile, Ala., though sprung from 

well-known family of Bedford County, Va., and though he has lived most of his life, and 
still lives, in Woodville. Miss. He was educated partly in New Orleans, aud partly at Centre 
College, Kentucky. He served in the Mexican war and in the late war. He is a lawyer by 
profession. His authorship began since the war. He has written three works of fiction, 
all intended to portray certain phases of Southern .society, and all showing marked p(nver. 
These are; The Life of Abraham Page, Esq. ; What I Know about Ben Eccles, by Abraham 
Page ; The Quines. Though purely fictitious, these stories have so much the form of actual 
biography, that the reader at first takes them for simple history, 

William W. Turner, 1830 , a native and resideirt of Eatonton, Ga., published in 1865 

a novel. Jack liopetou. He has also written to some extent for the magazines. 

Rev. F. R. Goulding, 1810 , of Georgia, has written a good deal for tlie young. Mr. 

Goulding graduated at the University of Georgia, Athens, 1830, and studied theology at 
Columbia, S. C. His voice failing, he occupied himself a portion of his time in writing juve- 
nile books. He has published the following : Robert Harold, or The Young Mai'oouers on 
the Florida Coast ; Little Josephine ; Marooner's Island ; Frank Gordon, or When I was a 
Little Boy ; Fishing and Fishes ; Life Scenes from the Gospel History, 

Charles Dimitry. 

Charles Dimitry, 1838 , has risen within a few years to a high 

position, as a novelist of much originality and power. 

Mr. Dimitry is a native of Washington, D. C, son of Prof. Alexander Dimitrj-, formerly of 
New Orleans. Mr. Charles Dimitry is a graduate of Georgetown College. He has published 
the following novels : Guilty or Not Guilty, 1SG4; Angela's Christmas, 186.'> ; The Alderly 
Tragedy, 18G6; The House in Balfour Street, 1869. "These are all distinctly able, and all 
clearly above the popular novels of the day. There is nothing commonplace, or flimsy, or 
feeble, about any of them. As ajournalist, also, Mr. Dimitry has been quite successful. He 
has been connected with the editorial management of some i)romineut Southei'n periodicals, 
aud he is now among the fraternity in New York." — J. Wood Davidson. 

John Esten Cooke. 

John Esten Cooke, 1830 , has clone for the historical traditions 

of Virginia what Simms did for those of tlie Carolinas, and Cooper for those 
of the North and West. Some of Mr. Cooke's historical novels, such as 
The Virginia Comedians, and Henry St. John, are the best and truest pic- 
tures anywhere to be found of Virginia in tlie olden time. He has shown 
himself an able biographer also by his Lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee, 
and he contributed actively in other ways to the literature of the war. 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME 483 

Mr. Cooke was born at 'Winchester, Yu., and spent the first years of liis life at Glengary, 
his fathers estate in Frederick County, wlience, on tlie burning of his house there, he re- 
moved to Riclimond, as the place of session of the liiglier courts of tlie Coiunionwealtli. 

Ilis father, John R. Cooke, was a hiwyer of the highest order of ability, a man of ninch 
sweetness of disposition, elegance of manner, and greatly respected and beloved by his emi- 
nent associates, among whom were Chief-Justice Marshall, Judge Tucker, "Watkins Leigli, 
Judge Stannard. His mother was Maria Pendleton, a grandniece of Judge Edmund Pendleton. 

He was educated at an ordinary Virginia school, and finished at sixteen, under Dr. Burke, 
a very excellent teacher of languages, at Richmond. He studied law with his father, be- 
ginning tl-.e practice at twenty or twenty-one, but discontinuing it three or four years after- 
wards, for literary pursuits, writing for the Southern Literary Messenger and the New York 
magazines iintil the war. During the war, he served in the Virginia campaigns, for the 
most jjart on Gen. Stuart's staff, from April 10, 18G1, to April 10, 1805 — four years to a day. 

Since the war he has resided in Clarke County, A'a. He was married in lb67 to Miss Page, 
and has lived in the county, engaged in literary and other pursuits. 

The following are his publications written before the war: Leatherstocking and Silk; 
The Virginia Comedians, 2 vols.; The Youth of Jefferson ; The Last of the Foresters; Ellie, 
or the Human Comedy ; Henry St. John, Gentleman ; Fairfax. 

His war books are the following: Surry of Eagle's Nest; Mohun; Hilt to Hilt; Hammer 
and Rapier; 'Wearing of the Gray; A Life of Gen. Lee; Stonewall Jackson, a Biography. 

Besides these he has written a volume called Out of the Foam, and three or four other 
stories of volume dimensions, with a considerable quantity of miscellaneous writing. 

Mr. Cooke has a fine imagination, he is exceedingly well read in the old Virginia ti'adi- 
tious, and he knows how to carry his readers with him in the scenes that he creates. 

Philip Pendleton Cooke. 

Philip Pendleton Cooke, 1816-1850, though known chiefly as a poet, 
yet wrote excellent prose. There are, moreover, other reasons, connected 
with his name and the family traditions, for not separating him from his 
younger brother, J. Esten Cooke. Tlie volume by which Philip Pendleton 
Cooke is best known is The Froissart Ballads, containing among other 
pieces the exquisite poem of Florence Vane. 

Mr. Cooke was born in Berkeley County, Va., and graduated at Princeton, in the class of 
1834. He studied law, and practised for many years. His early life was spent at Glengary, 
liis father's country residence, near Winchester. Glengary is a very beautiful country seat, 
and the young poet had a little house in a secluded grove where he used to write poetry, 
and amuse himself with an a;olian harp. He became, early, an indefatigable hunter, and 
before he died became famous as the greatest huntsman of the Shenandoah Valley. 

His first poems, Florence Vane, To Edith, etc., were published in the Southern Literary 
Messenger, edited then by Poo, who liad a very high (ppinion of Mr. Cooke's jiroductions. 
Afterwards he wrote many prose pieces for the Messenger, tales, criticisms, sketches, and a 
romance, the Chevalier Merlin, remaining unfinished at his death. He published in Phila- 
delphia the Froissart Ballads, a return to chivalric poesy. 

He was married early to Williann Tayloe Corbin Rurwell, a daughter of a gentleman of 
Clarke County, and thi-ongh his wife ciune into possession of the est;ite of the Vineyard, 
where he died in 1860, of pneumonia, caught in riding through the Shenandoah ou a hunt- 
ing expedition. He left one son, Lieut. N. B. Cooke, and sevenil daughters. 

Tlie author of the present volume has a very vivid recollection of the character and the per- 
•onal appearance of Mr. Cooke, when a student at l»rinceton, and bears witness to the truth- 
fulness of the following portrait from the pen of the younger brother. Fruteruul aflectiou 
Las barely done justice to one of nature's noblest gentlemen. 



484 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

" My brother, of whom jon so kindly inquire, was a person of marked character, — proud, 
resolute, but very sweet-tempered, and remarkable for his dignity and personal beauty. His 
head was really noble, his eyes dark, his hair curling chestnut, and his person erect and 
vigorous. He alternated between the reveries of the poet and the headlong activity of the 
huntsman. No one could be more beloved by his family and friends, and I look back to him 
now as a man of real genius, who would have filled a large space in the age of the literary 
world if he had not died so soon. His mind was just opening into full bloom, and had 
scarcely shown its full strength. I never saw a son so absolutely devoted to his father and 
mother. 'Love in abundance to all,' he wrote in one of his letters; 'I am near them and 
you in spirit, if I cannot be in i^erson. Thank God, the affections need no travelling fund 
to get to dear friends in distant places — they fly like doves.' To his father he wrote: ' I am 
indebted to you for a nature as elastic as a young ash-tree, and it icill straighten, itself the 
mement any load is shaken off.' 

"Poetry and hunting were his passions. He was profoundly read in the English masters 
from Chaucer to the present. He was a fair but not a deep scholar in the ancient and modern 
languages, and I remember was one of the very first persons in this country to recognize the 
genius of Tennyson when it was laughed at, generally. 

"I can sum up my brother's character by saying that he Avas an admirable type of a 
sensitive, refined, and highly cultivated gentleman — manly and healthy in his character; 
with a deep respect for religion, an elegant courtesy of beai'iug, great dignity, and very 
warm and earnest affections. His youth was impulsive and heyday — he would and did gallop 
twenty miles to throw a bouquet into the window of his cousin ' Florence Tane ; ' but in 
later life he was quiet, simple in his tastes, not easily aroused to any harsh emotion, and the 
most tender of fathers, which his little piece To My Daughter Lily will show." 



FLORENCE VANE. 

I loved thee long and dearly, 

Florence A'ane ; 
My life's bright dream, and early 

Hath come again ; 
I renew in my fond vision, 

My heart's dear pain. 
My hope, and thy derision, 

Florence Vane. 

The ruin lone and hoary. 

The ruin old, 
Where thou didst mark my story, 

At even told, — 
That spot — the hues Elysiau 

Of sky and plain — 
I treasure in my vision, 

Florence Vane. 

Thou wast lovelier than the roses 

In their prime; 
Thy voice excelled the closes 

Of sweetest rhyme ; 
Thy heart was as a river 

Without a main. 
Would I had loved thee uever, 

Florence Vane, 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 485 

But, fairest, coldest wonder ! 

Thy glorious clay 
Lieth the green sod under — 

Alas the day ! 
And it boots not to remember 

Thy disdain — 
To quicken love's pale ember, 

Florence Vane. 

' The lilies of the valley 

By young graves weep, 
The pansies love to dally 

Where maidens sleep; 
May their bloom in beauty vying 

Never wane, 
Where thine earthly part is lying, 

Florence Vane! 

R. M. Bird. 
Egbert Montgomery Bird, M.D., 1805-1854, is favorably known as a 
writer of romantic fiction, as well as joint proprietor and editor of the 
Philadelphia North American. 

Dr. Bird was born in Newcastle, Del., but resided most of his life in Philadelphia. He 
studied medicine and practised for one year. Literature, however, had greater attractions 
for him, and he gave himself up to its pursuit. lie wrote three tragedies, which were played 
in 1831-3 with great success, The Gladiator, Oraloosa, and The Broker of Bogota. His chief 
works were in the line of romantic fiction. The following novels appeared in rapid succes- 
sion, between 1834 and 1839 : Calavar, or The Knight of the Conquest, a Romance of Mexico ; 
The Infidel, or The Fall of Mexico ; The Hawks of Hawk Hollow, a Tradition of Pennsyl- 
vania ; Sheppard Lee ; Nick of the Woods ; The Adventures of Robin Day. 

"The author (of the Romance of Mexico) has studied with great care the customs, man- 
ners, and military usages of the natives, and has done for them what Mr. Cooper ha.s dono 
for the wild tribes of the North, — touched their rude features with the bright coloring of a 
poetic fancy. He has been equally fortunate in his delineations of the picturesque scenery 
of the land; and if he has been less so in attempting to revive the antique dialogue of the 
Spanish cavalier, we must not be surprised ; nothing is more difficult than the skilful execu- 
tion of a modern antique." — Prescott. 

Besides his novels. Dr. Bird published a book called Peter Pilgrim, or a Rambler's Recol- 
lections, a collection of tales and sketches, including a long account of the Mammoth Cave, 
said to be one of the earliest that appeared. 

For the last six or seven years of his life. Dr. Bird was associated with Morton McMichael 
as joint proprietor and editor of the North American newspaper of Philadelphia. 

Charles J. Peterson. 

Charles J. Peterson, 1818 , proprietor and editor of Petcrson'a 

Ladies' Magazine, ha.s written several popular novels, besides some histori- 
cal and biographical works of value. 

Mr. Peterson was born and has always lived in Phila(l(>lphia. Ho was partly educated at 
the University of Pennsylvania. Ho studied law and was ailmittod to the bar in 1831). Soou 

41* 



486 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

afterwards, he became part proprietor of the Saturday Evenincr Post, and abandoned law for 
literature. lie was editor of Graham's Magazine .for some years, afterwards of Peterson'.s 
Magazine, which he still publishes. He has written the following works: The Military 
Heroes of the United States, a work for popular reading, illustrated, in two large volumes, 
octavo. He is the author of various tales and romances originally published anonymously : 
Cruising in the Last War; Harry Danforth ; The Valley Farm ; Kate Aylesford ; The Old 
Stone Mansion ; and numerous shorter oues. lie was for many years engaged in writing 
leading articles for The Evening Bulletin, and afterwards for the Public Ledger of Phila- 
delphia. 

Henry Peterson. 

Henry Peterson, 1818 , editor of tlie Saturday Evening Post, is 

the author of several entertaining vokimes. 

Mr. Peterson was bom and educated in Philadelphia. He has lived for the last twenty 
years in Germantown. He has been connected with the Saturday Evening Post since 1846. 
He has published the following volumes : The Twin Brothers ; The Modem Job ; Poems. 

Herman Melville. 

Herman Melville, 1819 , is the author of several works of fic- 
tion, describing wild adventures among the islands of the Pacific. 

Mr. Melville is a native of New York. While very young he displayed a great love for 
adventure and went to sea before the mast. On one of his voyages in the Pacific he deserted 
the ship, and was taken prisoner and kept for several months in the Typee valley on one 
of the Marquesas. He was rescued by a whaling vessel, and finally returned home in a 
United States man-of-war. 

Melville is the author of several exciting works based upon his adventures. The follow- 
ing are the principal: Tj-pee, or Four Months in the Marquesas; Omoo; Mardi, and a 
Voyage Thither; Redburn, or the Confessions of a Gentleman's Son in the Merchant Service ; 
White Jaclcet, or the World in a Man-of-War; The Piazzi Tales, a series of stories published 
in Putnam's Mag-aziue ; The Confidence Man. His two best works are, perhaps, Typee and 
Redburn. In the former, life among the savages is described in an almost idyllic style, too 
idyllic, it has been observed, to be wholly accui-ate. At least one may be permitted to doubt 
whether the savages of Tj-pee were quite as interesting as Melville has represented them. 
The work itself and its successors attracted great attention at the time of their appearance, 
and although interest in them has since abated, they are still excellent in point of style. 
Melville is a writer of forcible and graceful English, although in some of his works he lapses 
into mysticism. 

Jedediah Vixcent Huntington, 1815 , is a native of the city of New York. He was 

for some time a physician, then a minister in the Episcopal Church, and in 1849 became a 
convert to the Catholic fjiith. He is a brother of Huntington, the well-known artist. Be- 
sides contributing to the Knickerbocker and to Blackwood, he has edited several Catholic 
periodicals — The Leader, St. Louis, and The Metropolitan Magazine. The following are his 
principal volumes : Lady Alice, or the New Una ; Alban, or the History of a Young Puritan ; 
The Forest, a Sequel to Alban ; The Pretty Plate ; America Discovered, a Poem ; Poems, etc. 

" He [Huntington] is classical and Wordsworthian. He, too, is deeply religious, and his 
poems have a sober hue; but they are so carefully chiselled as to defy critical ceusure. A 
considerable portion of this volume is occupied with fragments and inscriptions from the 
Greek. These arc, in general, elegantly and faithfully done." — Loudon Atheneum. 



FROJt 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 487 

C. Barnard. 
Chaiiles Baexard, 1835 , h;xs within the last few years risen sud- 
denly to note by a series of musical novels, The Soprano, and The Tone 
Masters, and by some equally striking books on gardening, of which the 
most notecUis The Strawberry Garden. 

Mr. Barnard was born in the rooms of the Warren Street Mission Chapel, Boston, wliere 
his father, Rev. C. F. Barnard, was minister. Charles attended school as far as health per- 
mitted, and assisted his father about the chapel, until the age of sixteen. Then he tried a 
store, bTit found that store-keeping was not his voc<ition. Next he began studying for the 
niinistrj', but ill-health put a stop to that. Then he turned florist, to save his life. At 
twenty-one, finding himself very ignorant, he set to work to make up by private studies 
the deficiencies of his education. 

Mr. Barnard's first book appeared in March, 1S69, and its reception warranted the issue 
of another immediately afterward. The Musical Festival of that year followed soon, and 
from the stage of the Coliseum he wrote what is known as the "Jane Kingsford Letters." 
Upon these letters he made his newspaper reputation. Since that time the press has made 
incessant demands upon his pen. His own account of his litei-ary labors for the last three 
years is as follows : 

"I have nearly lost the run of the short stories, letters, and articles I have written since 
I began in 1869. They exceed two hundred in number, and are now being written and 
printed as fast as time and the demands of business permit. I have written at times for 
the Boston Advertiser, Globe, Transcript, Times, Gazette, Register, Watchman and Reflector, 
and the Youth's Companion; in New York, for the Evening Post and Independent; in the 
West, for the American Farm Journal ; also for Old and New, Oliver Optic's Merry's Museum 
and the Schoolmate. Why the press is after me so sharply is something past finding out. 
Perhaps it is because I have something to say, and say it without any fuss. Having nothing 
to say, I religiously never say it. 

" My books were published in the following order : My Ten Rod Farm, or How I became a 
Florist, by Mrs. Maria Gilman; Farming by Inches; The Soprano — a mnsicjvl story by Jane 
Kingsford ; A Simple Flower Garden, or Every Lady her own Gardener. 

"The foregoing were published under assumed names. After this I put my own name to 
everything. I published in this way three volumes: The Tone Masters — Mozart and Men- 
delssohn, Handel and Haydn, Bach and Beethoven, (these are the only books I ever men- 
tion; I think them the only ones worth much,) and The Strawberry Garden. 

"There is a serial of mine called Happiness in a Flower-Pot, now being published in a 
Toledo paper. I have two new story books in the hands of my publishers. In my desk is 
a new musical novel nearly finished. 

"I do not think I have been very indolent for the last three years, and there seems no 
prospect of a let-up in the pressure. All I can say for myself is, that I have endeavored to 
pick up facts of value, and tried to present them in an easy, natural way. I never make 
any pretence to style, or fine writing. I have neither. I merely talk. My aim is to so use 
the gift suddenly plumped down in my lap that none may complain, and all perhaps be made 
better. I go for the bright side of things, and have a solemn and enduring faith in fun. If 
I have any particular forte, it is careful seeing and accurate recording. Beyond this I claim 
nothing." 

E. E. Hale. 

Kev. Edward Everett Hale, 1822 , is the author of a number 

of ingenious and entertaining fictions, and of other valuable works which 
have a wide circulation. 

Mr. Halo was born in Boston, son of Nathan and Sarah P. Hale. Ho w:\s educated at the 
Boston Public Ljitin Schoi>l and at Harvard College, graduating in 1839. Ho was pastor of 



488 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

the church of Unity, Worcester, Mass., from 1846 to 1856, and has been pastor of the South 
Congregational church, Boston, since that time. 

Mr. Hale has puhlislied the following works : The Man Without a Country ; My Double 
and How He Undid Me; If, Yes and Perhaps; The Ingham Papers; Sybaris and other 
Homes; Ten Times One; Ninety Days Worth of Europe; Margaret Percival in America; 
The Eosary; Kansas and Nebraska; Sketches of Christian History; Sermons and other 
pamphlets. He was editor of the Boston edition of Lingard's History of Eiigland, of the 
Christian Examiner, and of Old and New, which succeeded that journal. 

James De Mille, 1833 , Professor of History and Rhetoric at Dalhousie College, Nova 

Scotia, is the author of several amusing works of fiction. Prof. De Mille was born in St. 
John, New Brunswick, and educated at Providence, R. I. He was Professor for a time at 
Acadia College, and afterwards at Dalhousie. 

His publications are as follows: Helena's Household; The Dodge Club; Cord and Creese; 
The Cryptcgi-am; The Lady of the Ice; The American Baron; A Comedy of Terrors; a 
series of Boys' Books, called The B. 0. W. C. Series. 

Rev. Elijah Kellogg, , was born at Portland, Me. He graduated at Eowdoin in 

1840, and was for a time pastor of the Manner's church, Boston. He is the author of the 
following story-books for the young: The Lion Ben of Elm Island; Charley Bell, the Waif 
of Elm Island ; The Ark of Elm Island ; The Boy Farmers of Elm Island ; The Young Ship- 
builders of Elm Island ; The Hardscrabble of Elm Island ; Arthur Brown, the Young Cap- 
tain; The Young Deliverers; The Cruise of the Casco ; The Boy of the Island Elm; The 
Spark of Genius ; The Sophomores of Radcliffe ; The Whispering Pines, or The Graduates 
of Radcliffe. 

The speech of Spartacus to the Gladiators, which has found its way into so many school 
books, was written by Mr. Kellogg. 

T. S. Arthur. 

Timothy Shay Arthur, 1809 , Ls one of the most prolific writers 

that our current literature presents. Nearly all his writings are novels and 
tales. 

Mr. ArthTir was born in Newburgh, N. Y. He lived for several years in Baltimore, but 
since 1841 has lived in Philadelphia, and is counted a Philadelphian. 

He has made authorship his profession, and has been a most industrious, as well as pro- 
lific writer. Most of his works have appeared originally in serial form, either in Arthur's 
Magazine, of wliich he is the editor and proprietor, or in some similar publication. They 
consist almost exclusively of tales, are of a popular character, representing American domes- 
tic life, and many of them are intended particularly for the young. Some of his best-written 
tales, as Ten Nights in a Bar Room, and Six Nights with the Washingtonians, are written in 
advocacy of the cause of total abstinence. In some, also, as in Agnes or the Possessed, and 
The Good Time Coming, he broaches ideas bordering upon spiritualism and upon other systems 
of semi-religious belief, with which the Christian public is not in general accord. Tiie moral 
tone of Mr. Arthur's writings is worthy of commerulation. His imagination is a stranger to 
everything that is impure or that savors of licentiousness, and he holds up continually to 
the reader's attention pictures of truth, purity, and uprightness in private life. If he never 
rises to the higher regions of creative genius, he has yet great fertility of invention in the 
lower walks of useful authorship, and he always contrives to make his stories readable and 
interesting. The following is a list of his principal works : Sketches of Life and Character ; 
Lights and Shadows of Real Life; Leaves'from the Book of Human Life; Golden Grains from 
Life's Harvest Field ; The Loftons and the Pinkertous; Heart Histories and Life Pictures ; 
Tales for Rich and Poor, 6 vols. ; Library for the Household, 12 vols.; Arthur's Juvenile 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 489 

Library, 12 vols.; Cottage Library, 6 vols. ; Ten Nights in a Bar-Room ; Si.x Nights with tho 
Washingtoniaiis; Advice to Yuuivg Meu ; Advice to Yoimg Women; Maiden, Wife, and 
Mother, 3 vols. ; Tales of Married Life, 3 vols. ; Stories of Domestic Life, 3 vols.; Tales from 
Real Life, 3 vols.; Tired of Housekeeping ; True Riches; The Hand but not the Heart, etc. 

Henry A. Wise, 1819-1869, captain in the U. S. Navy, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and 
entered the naval service in 1834. For the last few years of his life he was head of the Ord- 
nance Bureau. Washington. He published Los Gringos, an interior view of Mexico and 
California; Tales for the Marines; Scampavias, from Gibel Tarek to Stamboul; The Story 
of the Gray African Parrot ; Captain Brand, of the Centipede. 

FiTZHUGH Ludlow, 1837-1870, was born at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. He was for several years 
an active contributor to Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and otlier periodicals. 
He wrote the Hasheesh Eater, portraying the pleasures and pains attending the use of that 
drug, to which he himself had been addicted ; also, The Opium Habit, describing in like 
manner his experience in the use of Opium ; The Heart of the Continent, describing a jour- 
ney across the great Western plains; and The Little Brother, a series of magazine stories. 
He was a man of fine natural abilities, but brought himself prematurely to the grave by the 
nse of the drugs which have been named. lie had given up their use entirely, but his 
health had been too much shattered to admit of recovery. 

John L. McConnel, 1826 , is a native and a resident of Jacksonville, HI. He is a 

lawyer by profession. He has written Talbot and Vernon; Graham, or Y''outh and Man- 
hood ; The Glenns, a Family History ; Western Character. 

John Hovey Robinson, M. D., 1825 , was born at Lubec, Me., and studied medicine at 

Bowdoin and Harvard. He has written a large number of novelettes to the Olive Branch, 
Gleason's Pictorial, Flag of Our Union, and other periodicals of that kind. 

Horace E. Sccdder, 1838 , was born in Boston, and graduated at Williams, in the 

class of 1858. His publications are : Seven Little People and their Friends ; Dream Children ; 
Life and Letters of David Coit Scudder, Missionary in Southern India; Stories from My 
Attic. Mr. Scudder has done considerable work also in editing a series of Hans Christian 
Andersen's writings, having translated a portion of them from the Danish. 

Emerson Bennett, 1822 , an American novelist, was born in Massachusetts. His publi- 
cations fire Clara Morland, Bandits of the Osage, Letigue of the Miami, Ella Barnwell, Mike 
Fink, Forest Rose, Kate Clarendon, Leni Leoti, Prairie Flower, Forged Will. 

John Brougham, 181-1 , a comedian, and a writer of comedies of considerable note. 

lie was born in Ireland, but came to the United States at the age of twenty-eight, and has 
exercised his calliug mostly here ever since. He is the author of more than a hundred dra- 
matic pieces, — comedies, farces, etc. He also published 3 volumes of Irish Stories and Mis- 
cellanies. 

William Mason Turner, M. D., 1835 , the author of numerous tales and novelettes, 

was born in Petersburg, Va. He graduated at Brown University, taking tho degree of 
Bachelor of Philosophy. lie studied medicine, taking his medical degree at the University 
of Pennsylvania, in 1858. He afterward.i went to Europe for clinical study. While abroad 
he travelled through Europe, Egypt, and Syria. In 1859 he returned, married in Phibulil- 
phia, and began the itractice of medicine in Petersburg. In the following year he publislioil 
a book of travels. El Khuds, The Holy, 800 page-s. Svo, giving an accoiint of hia Orieutal 
observations. Afterwards he riMuovcd to Philadelphia, and estal)lislied hini.scif in practice 
there. His main aUcntion ha;i been given tu literature, and especially to the writing of lulod 



490 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

and novelettes. He writes at present for the Saturday Xight, Saturday Journal, and West- 
ern World. The following is a list of his principal stories : Under Bail ; Ruby Ring; Silver 
Heels; Red Belt; Mabel Vane; Hand, not Heart; Silken Cord; Surf and Shore; Missing 
Finger; Dead Witness; Flung from the Foam; Neville's Cross; Masked Miner; College 
Rivals ; Bessie Raynor, etc. 

Dr. Turner speaks French, Spanish, and German, and is something of a sportsman, being 
fond of hunting, fishing, riding, and rowing. He has published several medical articles. 

Francis Henry Stauffer, 1832 , was born in Philadelphia, of Swiss descent on his 

father's side, and English on his mother's. He is a graduate of the common school, and of 
the " University of Daily Journalism." He has been for several years a contributor to the 
literary journals. At present he is an exclusive contributor to the Saturday Night. His best 
serials in that journal have been the following : Ruth Brandon, or the Wrecker's Daughter; 
Fidelia the Fire-Waif; Lucy Darrel ; The False Cousin; Dorian the Scout; Devona the 
Dauntless; Kate Walsingham, or Life in Bradbury Court. 

Mr. Stauffer is a resident of Philadelphia. 

Sylvanus Cobb, 1823 , is a native of Maine. He has edited The Rechabite and the 

New England Washingtonian, but is chiefly known as a contributor to Gleason's Pictorial, 
The Flag of Our Union, and to the New York Ledger. Some twenty or thirty novelettes 
have been republished from his newspaper stories. 

George M. Baker, 1832 , was born in Portland, Me. He " graduated " at a Boston 

grammar-school, with a Franklin medal. He is the author of the following books: A 
Baker's Dozen, Humorous Dialogues; Amateur Dramas, for Parlor Theatricals, Evening 
Entertainments, and School Exhibitions; The Mimic Stage, a new Collection of Dramas, 
Farces, Comedies, and Burlesques, for Parlor Theatricals, Evening Entertainments, and 
School Exhibitions ; The Social Stage, Dramas, Comedies, Farces, Dialogues, etc., for Home 
and School ; An Old Man's Prayer. 

W. T. Adams,— «^*^ Oliver Optic." 

William T. Adams, 1822 , is the most prolific, and the best writer 

that we have, of story-books for boys. His name, " Oliver Optic" is a key 
to one main element of his popularity. He is one who has used his eyes. 
He writes of what he has seen. Another source of his popularity is his 
warm sympathy with the young. One cannot read a page of his writings 
without seeing that there is no make-believe in this matter. The author 
himself really enjoys the boyish scenes which he creates. His long expe- 
rience as a teacher has probably helped him on this point. At all events, 
he seems to have an instinctive knowledge of what will interest young 
people, and especially boys. As a caterer to boyish tastes, and at the same 
time an educator of those tastes to high standards of judging and acting, 
Mr. Adams is without an equal at the present time. 

Mr. Adams was born in Medway, Mass. He was educated mainly in the public schools of 
Boston. He taught school for three years at Dorchester. He then went into the hotel busi- 
ness with his father and brother. He was aijpointed in 184*^ Usher in the Boyleston School ; 
in 185:}, Sub-Master; and in 1859, Master. Soon after this he was transferred to the Master- 
ship of the Bowditch School, in which position he remained until 1865, when he resigned. 
Since that time he has devoted himself entirely to literature, — teaching by his pen. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 191 

He went to Europe for the purpose of making studies from life for a scries of Itooks de- 
scriptive of the liistory, geography, manners and customs of the chief countries of Europe. 

His public career as a writer began in 1850. He wrote stories for the newspapers, which 
were immediately popular, and brought him under the notice of publishers. His amazing 
fertility of invention in this dep;irtmcnt of periodical literature is seen iu the fact that he 
has published no less than eight hundred stories in newspapers, e.\clus;ve of his books — of 
which latter he has written over fifty volumes! His fugitive stories would fill about sixty 
volumes as large as his ordinary books! 

He published his first book in 1853 — Hatchle, the Guardian Slave, or the Heir of Belle- 
vue, which had a large sale for those times. His next volume was In-doors and Out, a col- 
lection of newspaper stories. The Riverdale Series, 6 volumes, for buys of eight years of 
ago, was completed in 1862. He commonly wrote one of these volumes in a couple of even- 
ings. Then came the Boat Club Series and the Woodvillc Seiies, which were published at 
the same time, from 1863-66, at the rate of four volumes a year. During the war, he wrote 
a series of six volumes, descriptive of uaval and military life. This is known as tlie Army 
and Navy Series. 

In 1870 he went a second time to Europe, travelling in the countries not visited on the 
former occasion, in order to prepare himself for the second series of The Young American 
Abroad. 

Mr. Adams resides at Dorchester. He has served for six years as a member of the School 
Committee of that place, and in 1869 he was a member of the Legislature. 

The following is a list of his publications: Boat Club Series, 6 vols.; Woodville Series, 6 
vols. ; Army and Navy Series, 6 vols. ; Riverdale Stories, G vols. ; Starry Flag Series, 6 vols. ; 
Lake Shore Series, 6 vols.; Upward and Onward, 6 vols.; Young America Abroad, first 
Series, 6 vols., second Series, 2 vols.; Ilatchie, 1 vol.; In-Doors and Out, 1 vol. ; The Way 
of the World, 1 vol.; Our Standard Bearer, 1 vol.; A Spelling-Book for Advanced Classes, 1 
vol. — total, 55 volumes. 

Warrex Ives Bradley, 1847-1868, a j'oung man of brilliant promise, died at the age of 
twenty-one, at Bristol, Conn. He had for his age made great progress in literature and 
science, and had already given to the public thirteen books, one of them Culm Rock, taking 
a prize of $350 over seventy-two competitors. He wrote under the name of '• Glance Gay- 
lord." His books were of the kind known as juvenile. 

Peter Carter, 1825 , a member of the eminent publishing house of Robert Carter & 

Brothers, of New York, has written three admirable Sunday-School books, Bertie Lee, Don- 
ald Eraser, and Little Effie's Home, all of which are great favorites with the young folks. 
Mr. Carter also compiled Scotia's Bards, an elegant volume containing choice selections from 
the best poets of Scotland, with biographical sketches, and handsome pictorial illustrations. 
The work is one showing a finely cultivated taste, and has been popular. Memorial of 
Kate B. Freeman, and Crumbs from the Land of Cakes, are additional evidences of literary 
industry on the part of the author. Mr. Carter was born in Scotland, at Earlston, four 
miles from Abbotsford, but ainie to the United States at the age of seven, and after spend- 
ing eight years on a farm, entered into the bookselling business. 

Rev. William Makepe.\ce Th.^ter, 1820 , was bom in Franklin, Mass. Ho graduated 

at Brown University in 1843, and was one of nine in the class who were made meml)ers of the 
Phi Beta Kappa Society. He studied theology with Rev. Dr. Ide, for the Orthodox Congre- 
gational ministry, and was ordained over the Orthodox Congregational Church iu Ashland, 
Mass., in 1849. During his ministry he wrote some for the press. A bronchial difficulty 
forced him to leave preaching after eight years of labor, when he devoted himself to liteniry 
work. Besides writing books, he edited the Home Monthly and the Mother's As.sistant 
for several years, and luis always written more or less for the public journals. In ISOl, he 



492 AMEEICAN LITERATUEE. 

relinqtiishefl book-writing, in order to act as Secretary of the Massachusetts Temperance 
Alliance. In that office he still remains. 

The following is a list of his publications : The Poor Boy and Merchant Prince ; The Good 
Girl and True "Woman; Doing and Not Doing; The Bobbin Boy; The Pioneer Boy; The 
Printer Boy; Life at the Fireside; Working and Winning; Pastor's Wedding Gift; The 
Morning Star and Other Symbols of Christ ; The Old Horseshoe, or Sammy's First Gent ; 
Soldiers of the Bible; Tales from Genesis, 2 vols.; Letters to a School Boy; Youth's History 
of the Rebellion, 4 vols. ; Communion Wine and Bible Temperance; The Gem and Casket ; 
Merry Christmas ; Happy New Year. 

^ Eev. Z. a. Mudge, a. M., 1813 , was born in Ovington, Me. He removed in childhood 

to Lynn, Mass., the native place of his parents, where he remained to early manhood. He 
was educated at the Lynn Academy, and the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., from 
which he received his A. M. 

From college he went South and taught in the Woodville Academy, Woodville, Miss., 
where he remained three years. He was then ordained a minister in the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, and joined, in 1840, the New England Conference, in which he has itinerated in 
conformity to the usages of that church, holding the pastoral oflBce in various places in 
Massachusetts, among which are Newton, Wilbraham, Worcester, Charlestown, Boston, 
Dorchester, Quincy, Marblehead, and Holleston. 

The following is a list of his publications, mostly religious story-books : The Royal Oak ; 
Earnest Laborer ; A Will and a Way ; Farmer's Boy ; Home and No Home ; English Harry ; 
George Perley's Lesson ; Forest Boy ; Rodney Dennis ; Grace Goodwin ; Plantation Jim ; 
Carrie Prince ; Chester Florence ; Prairie Boys ; Jamie Noble ; The Fisher Boy ; The Lob- 
ster Boy ; The Fisherman's Daughter ; Reef Village ; The Boat-Builder's Family ; Shell 
Cove; The Missionary Teacher : A Life of Cyrus Shepai'd; Wesley and His Friends; The 
Triumph of Industry, a Life of Adam Clark ; Lady Huntingdon Portrayed ; The Chris- 
tian Statesman, a Portraiture of Sir Fowell Buxton ; The Forest Boy, a Life of Abraham 
Lincoln ; Footprints of Roger Williams ; Towers of Zion : The Evidences of Christianity 
Illustrated; Mission Life; Easy Lessons for Infant Scholars (105,000 copies sold, and still 
scliiug 10,000 yearly); Views from Plymouth Rock; Witch Hill: a History of Salem Witch- 
craft. 

Rev. Jacob Abbott, 1803 , is a native of Hallowell, Me., and a graduate of Bowdoin, 

1820. He is a voluminous and popular writer. His writings are mostly religious, and nearly 
all of them for the young. Few writers have excelled liim as a caterer for the wants of the 
young mind, and his works in this line entitle him to a high i-ank. They are exceedingly 
numerous. The following ai-e the principal: The Rollo Books, 28 vols.; The Franconia 
Stories, 10 vols.; Marco Paul's Adventures, 6 vols. ; Harper's Stoi-y Books, 36 vols.; Litlle 
Learner Series, 5 vols. ; Juno and Georgie Series, 4 vols. ; and a large number of biographies 
of distinguished sovereigns. His principal works for adult readers are : The Young Christian, 
The Corner Stone, The Way to do Good, and The Teacher. Nearly all these works have 
been reprinted abroad, and translated into various foreign languages, and their influence 
has been very great. 

Rev. John S. C. Abbott, 1805 , is bi-other of Jacob, and a graduate of Bowdoin, 1825, 

Mr. Abbott has been a prolific writer, partly of tak'S, but chiefly on historical subjects. His 
Kings and Queens fill six volumes, and embrace the Lives of Marie Antoinette, Josephine, 
Madame Roland, Henry IV. of France, King Philip (the Indian chief), and Cortcz. He has 
written a History of Napoleon, Napoleon at St. Helena, Correspondence of Napoleon and Jose- 
phine, and History of the French Kevolution, in all of which ho is the apologist and advo- 
cate of the Bonapartes to a degree which has subjected him to severe criticism. Tlic works 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 493 

of his which have received the commendation of all parties arc The Mother at Home, and 
The Child at Home. The former of these especially has been translated into nearly every 
hmguaKe of Europe, and even into some of those of Africa and Asia. It is probably the 
best work extant on the subject of which it treats. 

Abbott Brothers (Benjamin Y., 1830 , Austin, 1S31 , Lyman, 1835 ,) are the 

joint authors of several voluminous law-books, and of the novel Concent Corners, besides 
numerous coutribuvions to periodical literature, their literary name being "Beuauly," 
(jBcH-jamin, Jj<-stin, Zy-man.) 

Robert J. PARVI^', 1823-1868, was born at Decrfield, N. J., and studied theology at the 
Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, Ya. lie pi'cachcd in several different places, and, at the 
time of his death, was Secretary of the Evangelical Education Society of his Church. Killed 
in the wreck of the steamer United States, on the Ohio River, Dec, 1868. lie published 
Sunday-School Illustrations, The Shepherd's Yoice, Union Notes on the Gospels, Soldier Life 
and Every Day Battles, The Ilappy Child. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Mrs. Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, 1812 , Ls, on the whole, 

the ablest and most brilliant of the Beecher family, and clearly the ablest 
and most successful living American novelist, since the death of Haw- 
thorne. Her best known and most characteristic novels are Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, The Minister's Wooing, Old Town Folks, and Agnes of Sorrento. 
Her stories for children, like those in Queer Little People, are in some re- 
spects better even than her novels. The House and Home Papers, and 
The Chimney Corner, show her to be possessed of remarkable power as an 
essayist. 

Mrs. Stowe is the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher. She was born at Litchfield, Conn. 
From the age of fifteen to the age of twenty, she assisted her sister, Catharine Beecher, in 
the management of a school at llartford. In 1832, she went with her father's family to 
Cincinnati. There, in 1836, she was married to Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, of Lane Theological 
Seminary. In 1850, Prof. Stowe and his family went to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me., 
and thence, in 1852, to Audover, Mass., where the family have resided ever since. 

Mrs. Stowe began pretty early to write occasional pieces, but her first volume appeared in 
1843, and was called The Mayflower. It consisted of short Tales and Sketches. It was not 
until 1852, when she was ali'eady forty years of age, that her first really great work appeared. 
AVhat she had written before, however, though small in quantity, and on ordinary topics, 
had made a profound impression, and had prepared the minds, of some at least, for the extraor- 
dinary developments which have followed. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in 1852. Its success was unprecedented in the annala 
of literature. In less than nine months, the sale had exceeded a million of copies; the 
autlior and the publishers had made fortunes out of it; more than thirty rival editions of it 
Lad been published in London alone, besides numerous other editions in different parts of 
Scotland and Ireland; it was translated into every living language that possessed a popular 
literature; and Harriet Beecher Stowe, before comparatively unknown, even in her own 
country, became as familiar a name, in every part of the civilized world, as Shakespeare or 
Homer. 

It is absurd to attribute such extraordinary success to the abolition character of the book. 
This feature of the work, if it attracted some readers, repellid others. There must have been 
Bome niuguotittiu about it, besides its political bias, which caused it tu bo trauslated into 

42 



494 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Arabic, Armenian, and Wendish, and the langiiagos of far-off China and Japan. Tho anti- 
slavery sentiment of the hooli, obtruded b3' the author in her own person, is in truth ita 
great blemish as a work of art ; and it is a proof of her extraordinary skill in other respects, 
that she was able so completely to fascinate millions of readers to whom her political 
opinions were either a matter of entire indifference, or of positive offence. 

The whole secret of the matter simply is, Mrs. Stowe is a woman of genius, and her book 
was a work of consummate skill. No living writer goes beyond her in ability as a mere 
story-teller. She is equally wonderful in the delineation of character. Even those persons 
who are introduced incidentally, in a single scene, stand out upon the canvas, clear and 
distinct, like the charcoal sketches in the contours of a great master. Of her dramatic 
powers — generally considered the highest mark of genius — it is superfluous to speak, when 
hundreds of theatres, metropolitan and provincial, were kept thronged, for months in suc- 
cession, by the exhibition of her story, even in the crude form given to it by some bung- 
ling playwright. Her mastery of pathos is apparently unbounded. The springs of emotion 
are touched at will ; the heart throbs, the eye swims, without a moment's notice, and appa- 
rently without an effort on the part of the writer. 

Blackwood, in an article of more than thirty pages, devoted to the examination of the 
literary merits of Uncle Tom's Cabin, viewing it solely as a work ot art, thus summed up 
its opinion of the author : " Mrs. Stowe is unquestionably a woman of genius ; and that is a 
word which we always use charily; regarding genius as a thing per se — different from 
talent, in its highest development, altogether, and in kind. Quickness, shrewdness, energj% 
intensity, may, and frequently do accompany, but do not constitute genius. Its divine 
spark is the direct and special gift of God ; we cannot completely analyze it, though we may 
detect its presence, and the nature of many of its attributes, by its action ; and the skill of 
high criticism is requisite in order to distinguish between the feats of genius and the oper- 
ation of talent. Now, we imagine that no person of genius can read Unde Tom's Cabin, 
and not feel in glowing contact with genius — generally gentle and tender, but capable of 
rising, with its theme, into very high regions of dramatic power. This Mrs. Stowe has done 
several times in the work before us — exhibiting a passion, an intensity, a subtle delicacy of 
perception, a melting tenderness, which are as far out of the reach of mere talent, however 
well trained and experienced, as the prismatic colors are out of the reach of the born blind. 
But the genius of Mrs. Stowe is of that kind which instinctively addresses itself to the affec- 
tions ; and though most at home with the gentler, it can be yet fearlessly familiar with the 
fiercest passions which can agitate and rend the human breast. "With the one she can ex- 
hibit an exquisite tenderness and sympathy ; watching the other, however, with stern but 
calm scrutiny, and delineating both with atruth and simplicity, in the one case touching, 
in the other really terrible.^' 

In 1853, " Uncle Tom," being then in the acme of his renown, the author visited Europe. 
She was received, of course, with distinguished attention, and on her return she published 
reminiscences of travel, in 2 vols., called Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. It had a large 
sale. Parts of this work, devoted to the description of philanthropic and religious institu- 
tions, are dull and prosaic. But in the parts descriptive of her visits to Melrose Abbey, 
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick Castle, Abbotsford, and to other places of historical renown, 
the imaginative genius of the author asserts itself, and her remarks, often profound as they 
are brilliant, seem to gush forth in the simplest and most natural manner, as if from an 
overflowing fountain. 

Since 1853, Mrs. Stowe has devoted herself to authorship, and has sent forth a large 
number of works, of varying degrees of merit ; none without marks of genius, yet none equal 
to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Dred, a Tale of tlie Dismal Swamp, a story of the same political bias 
as the preceding, sold largely in virtue of the established fame of the author, but it was, in 
artistic merit, as nearly a total failure as a woman of so much genius could well make. 

Her other principal works have come up more nearly to her first stjindard. Tliey are: 
The Minister's Wooing ; The Pearl of Orr's Island ; Pink and White Tyranny ; My Wife and 
I ; Agues of Sorrento ; and Old Town Folks. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 195 

Besides these hirgo works, Mrs. Stowe lias pnlilished a considerable nnmbcr of Tolnmes 
made up of talcs and sketches which had appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and the Young 
Folks. These pieces are on almost all sorts of domestic subjects, many of them intended espe- 
cially for children, and are among the best things, without exception, that she has writ- 
ten. The following are the titles of some of these volumes : House and Home Pai)ers ; Little 
Foxes, or the Insignificant Little Habits which Mar Domestic Happiness; The Chimney 
Corner; Stories about our Dogs ; Queer Little People; Daisy's First 'Winter, etc. 

In 1869, in consequence of the publication of the Countess Guiccoli's Recollections of 
Byron, and the attempt in various quarters not only to glorify the poet, but to disparage the 
nieniorj- of Lady Byruu, Mrs. Stowe undertook to vindicate the latter, in a book called The 
True Story of Byron's Life. It led to a fierce and most intemperate discussioa. 

Mrs. Stowe has published also several volumes of Poems. 



The Warners. 

The sisters Susan and Anna AVarner gained a wide celebrity by the pub- 
lication of a series of semi-religious novels, which had an extraordinary 
sale. Those best known are The Wide Wide World, and Queechy, by 
Susan ; Dollars and Cents, and My Brother's Keeper, by Anna ; and Say and 
Seal, the joint production of the two. They have also written, either jointly 
or separately, a number of very attractive books for the young, Susan 
wrote under the name of "Elizabeth Wetherell," and Anna under the name 
of " Amy Lothrop." 

SUS.A.N ■W.A.RNER, l'^18 , first Came before the public with the Wide Wide World, in 

1849. This was followed in 1852 by Queechy. The Hills of the Shatemuck, her third novel, 
appeared in 1856, and was coldly received. It was, in fact, greatly inferior to the first two. 

Iler next and last novel worthy of special notice was The Old Helmet, which appeared in 
1863, and which came up nearly if not quite to the original standard. Other books by Susan 
are Melbourne House ; Daisy ; Walks from Eden ; House of Israel ; What She Could ; Oppor- 
tunities; House in Town. 

Anna B. Warner. , the younger sister, has written Dollars and Cents; My 

Brother's Keeper; Mr. Rutherford's Children; Casper; Pond Lily Stories; Hard Maple; 
Sunday all the Week; Children of Blackberry Hollow, 6 vols. ; Stories of Vinegar Hill, 6 
vols.; Star out of Jacob; Melody of the iCd Psalm; Wayfaring Hymns; Three Little 
Spades; Little Jack's Four Lessons; Hymns of the Church Militant, a compilation; The 
Other Shore; Gardening by Myself. 

The works written by the sisters jointly are Say and Seal, a novel ; Christmas Stf)cking ; 
Books of Blessing, 8 vols. ; The Law and the Testimony, a large work containing all the verses 
of Scrii)ture arranged under different heads and subheads, intended to help the reader in 
finding texts suited to any jiarticular subject in emergency. 

The Misses Warner were both born in New York city, daughters of Henry W. Warner, of 
the New York bar. They live in a romantic island in the Hudson, uear West Point. 



Mrs. Ann S. Stephens. 

Mrs. Ann Sophia (Winterbotiiam) Stephens, 1813 , has boon in 

great demand as a writer of novels and tales for magazines. Ilcr produc- 
tions are very numerous, filling 14 vols. 12mo. 



496 AMEEICAN LITEEATUKE. 

Mrs. Stephens was born at Derbj', Conn. She was married in 1832, and removed to Port- 
land, Me. There she came under the notice of John Neal, who early appreciated her abili- 
ties. She projected and for some time conducted the Portland Magazine. Subsequently the 
family i-emoved to New York. There she gained a prize of $400 for a magazine story, 
called Mary Derwent. This gave her eclat, and thenceforward her productions have been 
in demand. She has written t^yo books on Needlework, and a considerable amount of verse. 
The following are her principal novels: Fashion and Famine; The Heiress of Clare Ilall ; 
The Old Homestead ; The Heiress; Myra, the Child of Adoption; The Rejected Wife ; The 
Wife's Secret; Mahaska, the Indian Princess; Silent Struggles; Ruby Gray's Strategy; 
Mabel's Mistake; The Curse of Gold; AYives and Widows. 

Mrs. Southworth. 

Mrs. Emma D. E. (Nevitte) Southwoeth, 1818 , has written a 

large number of novels, of the sensational school. Her first, Retribution, 
appeared in 1849, and since that time she has devoted herself with unflag- 
ging energy to the work of production. 

Mrs. Southworth was born in Washington, D. C, a daughter of Captain Charles Novitte 
of Alexandria, Va. Like many other authors whose writings have taken a strong hold upon 
, the public mind, she received in early life the baptism of sorrow. Her childhood, girlhood, 
and early womanhood, as described by herself, were little else than one continued scene of 
gloom, rivalling in intensity that which hung over the life of Charlotte Bronte. 

She became Mrs. Southworth in 1841, and in 1843 was thrown upon her own resources, 
"a widow in fact but not in name," to support herself and her little one. She became a 
teacher in the public schools, and a writer for the periodicals, and worked for both at starva- 
tion prices. 

Her first productions were merely short tales and sketches. At length, in 1849, she under- 
took a story intended to run through two or three numbers of the National Era, for which 
she was then writing. As the composition of this tale, Retribution, was the turning-point 
in her life, the history of its composition is given in her own words: 

" The circumstances under which this, my first novel, was written, and the success that 
afterwards attended its publication, are a remarkable instance of ' sowing in tears, and reap- 
ing in joy;' for, in addition to that bitterest sorrow with which I may not make you 
acquainted — that great life-sorrow — I had many minor troubles. My small salary was in- 
adequate to our comfortable support. My school numbered eighty pupils, boys and girls, 
and I had the whole charge of them myself. Added to this, my little boy fell dangerously 
ill and was confined to his bed in perfect helplessness until June. He would suffer no one 
to move him but myself— in fact no one else could do so without putting him in pain. Thus 
my time was passed between housekeeping, and school-keeping, my child's sick-bed, and my 
literary labors. The time devoted to writing was the hours that should have been given to 
sleep or fresh air. It was too much for me. It was too much for any human being. My 
health broke down. I was attacked with frequent hemorrhage of the lungs. Still I per- 
severed; I did my best for my house, my school, my sick child, and my publisher. Yet 
neither child, nor school, nor publisher received justice. The child suffei-ed and complained 
— the patrons of the school grew dissatisfied, annoying and sometimes insulting me — and 
as for the publisher, he would reject whole pages of that manuscript which was writtea 
amid gi'ief, and pain, and toil that he knew nothing of. If was indeed the very vielee of the 
' Battle of Life.' I was forced to keep up struggling when I only wished for death and for 
rest. 

"But look how it terminated. That night of storm and darkness came to an end, and 
morning broke on me at last — a bright glad morning, pioneering a new and happy day of 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 497 

life. First of all, it was in this very t<>mpost of trouble that my ' life-sorrow ' was, as it were, 
carried away — or I was carried away from brooding over it. Next, my child, contrary to 
my own opinion and the doctor's, got well. Then my book, written in so mnch pain, pub- 
lished besides in a newspaper, and, with:il, being the first work of an obscure and penniless 
author, was, contrary to all probabilities, accepted by the first publishing house in America, 
was published and (subsequently) noticed with high favor even by the cautious English re- 
viewers. Friends crowded around me — offers for contributions poured in upon me. And 
I, who six months before had been poor, ill, forsaken, slandered, killed by sorrow, privation, 
toil, friendless, found myself born as it were into a new life ; found independence, sj'm- 
pathy, friendship, and honor, and an occupation in which I could delight. All this came 
very suddenly, as after a terrible storm, a sun burst." 

Mrs. Southworth's novels arc not of the highest class, but they have been popular, and 
they have been poured forth from her teeming brain with extraordinary rapidity. The fol- 
lowing is the list, as taken from a late uniform edition of her works : The Family Doom, The 
Prince of Darkness, The Bride's Fate, The Changed Brides, How lie "Won Ilcr, Fallen Pride, 
The Widow's Son, Bride of Llewellyn, The Fortune Seeker, Allworth Abbey, The Bridal Eve, 
The Fatal Marriage, Love's Labor Won, The Deserted Wife, The Lost Heiress, The Gypsy's 
Prophecy, The Discarded Daughter, The Three Beauties, Yivia or the Secret of Power, The 
Two Sisters, The Missing Bride, The Wife's A'ictory,The Mother-in-law, The Haunted Home- 
stead, The Lady of the Isle, Retribution, The Pearl of Pearl River, The Curse of Clifton. 

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie. 

Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt Kitchie, 1820-1870, achieved her chief dis- 
tinction as an actress. She won laurels also as a writer. She was the 
author of various novels, plays, poems, and sketches, but is best known in 
letters by the Autobiography of an Actress. 

Mrs. Ritchie was born in Bordeaux, France, where her father, Samuel B. Ogden of New 
York, then resided. The first six years of her life were spent in a scene of fairy-like beauty, 
at a charming chateau in the neighborhood of Bordeaux. 

In 182C, the family returned to New York,and her career as a school-girl began. She dis- 
tinguished herself by such rapid progress in her studies, that Mr. Mowatt, a laywcr who 
visited her father's house, became interested in her, and persuaded her, when only fifteen 
years old, to marry him, that he might enjoy the pleasure of superintending her studies. 

The year following she published her first work, Don Pelayo, a poem in 5 cantos, remark- 
able as the work of a school-girl of sixteen, but not otherwise claiming attention. 

In a few years, misfortunes overtook Mr. Mowatt. He lost not only his fortune, but his 
Bight; and the child-wife whom he had married to educate became now the support of her 
blind husband. She first appeared as a Reader, and succeeded so well that she next went 
upon the stage in the character of Pauline in the " Lady of Lyons." Her career as an act- 
ress was a continued and brilliant success. She gained thereby not only ample support for 
herself and her blind husband, but lent to his life a ceaseless interest, as he accompanied 
her from place to place in all her varied engagements. 

While she was playing in England, Mr. Mowatt died. She returned thereupon to Americji, 
after a continued European success of ten years, and renewed her appearance before Ameri- 
can audiences, until 1854, when she was married to Mr. Ritchie, then editing the Richniund 
Enquirer, and retired from the stage in the acme of her fame. 

In 18G0 she was called to New York to attend her dying father, and for weeks she devoted 
her whole time to nursing him. His death left her in such a prostrate condition that she 
went to Europe t.i regain her health, first with a sister living in Paris, then with auothor 
Bister in Rome, after that in Florence. 

42* OQ 



493 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

PecnnTarj' disa-stcrs growing out of the war again orertaking her, she resorted to her pen 
as a means of support, not only for herself but for others. She Avrote several novels. Fairy 
ringers, The Mute Singer, Tire Twin Roses, The Clergyman's Wife, and contributed largely 
to the newspapers and magazines. 

In 186G, she left Florence to live in London, and for the la-st three years of her life she 
lived in the classic village of Twickenham, on the Thames, where she died in July, 1L70, 
surrounded by a group of chosen and loving friends. 

Besides the works already named, Mrs. Ritchie wrote two plays, Fashion, and Arnaud, 
which held their place for fifteen years on the London stage; The Fortune-Hunter, a novel ; 
Evelyn, or the Heart Unmasked, a tale of dramatic life ; Mimic Life, or Before and Behind 
the Curtain; and The Autobiography of an Actress. 

Mrs. Sara J. Lippineott, — *^^ Grace Greenwood." 

Mrs. Sara Jaxe (Clarke) Lippincott, 1823 , gained much 

eclat, under the name of " Grace Greenwood," as a writer of tales and 
sketches for the magazines. She has published several volumes. Her 
latest efforts have been directed mainly to writing for the young, and she 
edits a juvenile magazine called The Little Pilgrim. 

Mrs. Lippincott was born in Pomfrey, Onondago County, N. Y. Her early girlhood waa 
spent in Rochester. At the age of nineteen, she removed to New Brighton, Pa., which was 
her home for several j'ears. In 1853, she was married to Mr. Leander K. Lippincott, of Phila- 
delphia, and she made that city her home for many years. Of late she has lived chiefly in 
Washington City. 

Her principal publications are the following : Greenwood Leaves, two series, a collection 
of magazine articles; Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe ; History of My Pets ; Recol- 
lections of My Childhood; Merrie England; Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for 
Children ; Stories from Famous Ballads ; Forest Tragedy and other Stories ; Stories from 
Many Lands ; Record of Five Years ; Poems. 

Harriet Preseott Spofford. 

Mrs. Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford, 1835 , is known 

chiefly by a work of fiction, called The Amber Gods. 

Mrs. Prescott was born in Calais, Me., daughter of Joseph W. Prescott. She removed to 
Newbui-yport, Mass., Avhere she was educated, and where she was married to Mr. Richard S. 
Spofford, a lawyer doing business in Boston. She began writing early ; has contributed to 
most of the periodicals; and has published the following works, all of which have been 
popular: The Amber Gods; New England Legends; A Thief in the Night; Sir Rohan's 
Ghost; Azarian. 

Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton. 

Mrs. Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton, 1835 , is a lively, spark- 
ling writer, who has acquired considerable celebrity as a writer of tales and 
sketches. 

Mrs. Moulton was born at Pomfret, Conn., and educated at Mi-s. Willard's Seminary, Troy. 
She began contributing to the magazines and other periodicals when only fifteen years old. 
Her first volume, published when she was only eighteen, was called This, That, and the 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 499 

Otiier, and consisted, as the name indicates, of miscellaneous essays and sketches. It was 
very successful, over 10,0')0 copies being sold. Iler ne.xt volume was Jane Clifford, a con- 
tinuous novel, publisiied anonymously. Iter Third Book was, like the first, a collection of 
short pieces, and met with excellent success. She has contributed largely to Harper's 
Monthly and Weekly, to the Galaxy, the Atlantic, the Young Folks, and latterly has become 
the regular Boston correspondent of the New York Tribune. She has also written some 
sweet poems, which have gone the rounds of the papers extensively. She left her country 
home to become the wife of one of her Boston publishers ; and her authorship, both before 
and after this event, has been the fruit solely of Jove for the work, her circumstances hav- 
ing alwaj's been those of entire worldly ease and comfort. She is a quick observer, seeing 
at a glance whatever she does see, and she writes in a lively, dashing manner, yet often with 
singular felicity and daintiness of expression. Her later pieces are a great improvement 
upon her first, in the important matter of finish, showing that she is a careful worker. Mrs. 
Moulton is described as a woman of great personal attractions. " Her manner is very lively 
and animated, her conversation sparkling and full of vivacity. She almost always smiles 
when she speaks ; and when she laughs, a whole ocean of mirth and merriment breaks loose 
and seems to ripple all around you." 

Miss Aleott. 

Miss Louisa May Alcott, 1832 , rose suddenly to fame, in 1867, 

by the publication of a novel called Little Women. This was followed in 
rapid succession by The Old Fashioned Girl, Little Women, Little Men, 
and other stories conceived in the same vein, and all equally popular. 

Miss Alcott was born in Germantown, Pa., but has resided chiefly in Massachusetts, being 
daughter of Mr. Bronson Alcott, of Concord, a New England transcendentalist. She Wiia 
educated at home, by her father. She was for ten j'ears a teacher. She began to write for 
the papers at the age of sixteen, and kept up pretty regularly, but with no marked success 
for the first fifteen years. At twenty-nine she managed to support herself by needle and 
pen. At thirty-nine, she supported herself and family by the pen alone. 

Her first work that attracted particular attention was Hospital Sketches, published in 
1863. She was one of the army of volunteer nurses who had gone to Washington to labor in 
the military hospitals. While so laboring, she wrote back home to her mother and sisters 
letters containing sketches of hospital life and experience. These letters on her return 
were revised and published in a book, and attracted much attention. 

In 1865 she published her first novel. Moods. The next year she travelled in Europe, en- 
deavoring to recuperate her health, which had been seriously impaired by her hospital 
work. On coming back to America in 1867, she wrote the novel. Little Women, which at 
once made her famous. 

One who is well acquainted with her, writes as follows : 

"Few women more intensely American than Miss Alcott can be found among the thou- 
sands of our countrywomen abroad. The daughter of a New England transcendentalist, 
Mr. Bronson Alcott, of Concord, and descended, on her mother's side, from the Mays, Sew- 
alls, and Quincys, of Boston, she is, by birth and training, a Protestant of Protestants, an 
entiiusiast for freedom, nature, and the ideal life. Her humor, her tastes, her aspirations, 
hor piety, are all American, as well as her style and her opinions, which her books suffi- 
ciently exhibit. It is this which makes their charm; for though she writes admirably, it is 
rather for what she says than for hor manner of saying it that the world reads her novels. 
Little Women is a natural jticture of life in Eastern Miussachusetts. in which her own family 
and friends ajjpear under a !«Iight disguise. In An Old-Fjvshioncd Girl, the same method is 
pursued ; the characters are drawn from life, and are full of the buoyant, free, hopeful New 



600 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

England spirit — beyond constraint and above vulgarity — which makes them so fascinat- 
ing. They have been received with enthusiasm by the young people of the country, and are 
read with toleration, if not with positive delight, in England. The time will come, we 
fancy, when her books will be as popular abroad as they are now at home." 

The sale of these books, up to September, 1871, was as follows ; Little Women, 87,000 ; Old- 
Fashioned Girl, 47,000 ; Little Men, 48,000. It has doubtless largely increased since. 

Olive Logan. 

Olive Logan, 1841 , was until recently an actress. In 1868, at the 

suggestion originally of " Artemus Ward," she undertook that species of 
public entertainment known as " lecturing." Succeeding in it, she left the 
stage, and since that time has devoted herself to that and other kinds of 
literature. 

Her " Lectures," so called, have been : Stage-Stnick ; Paris, the City of Luxury ; The Bright 
Side ; Girls ; The Passions ; and Nice Young Men. Her income as a lecturer is reputed at 
$15,000 a year. 

The following is a list of her books : Chateau Frissac ; Photographs of Paris Life ; John 
Morris's Money; Somebody's Stocking; The Good Mr. Bagglethorpe ; Women and Theatres; 
Before the Footlights and Behind the Scenes; The Mimic World; Get Thee Behind Me, 
Satan. 

She has written the following Plays : Armadale, a dramatization of Wilkie Collins's Novel ; 
The Felon's Daughter, a drama; Pluck, a comedy ; Surf, or Life at Long Branch, a comedy ; 
West Point, a comedy. 

Miss Logan was born in Elmira, N. Y. She is a daughter of Cornelius A. Logan, of Balti- 
more, and a sister of the actress, Eliza Logan. Her father was an actor, and at the 
same time a poet and scholar. Olive also was bred to the stage, and in her childhood was 
often borne upon the mimic scene in the arms of a Forrest or a Booth, as the child of Cora 
in Pizarro. At the early age of sixteen, however, Olive was withdrawn from the stage and 
sent to Europe to be educated, in Paris and London. She resided abroad seven years, en- 
riching her mind, not only by study and observation, but by contact with many of the most 
brilliant intellects. 

Returning to this country in 1862, Miss Logan resumed her profession for a short time, 
and after playing a star engagement at Wallack's Theatre, in New York, made a tour of the 
West, performing only in classic plays, or comedies from her own pen. 

In 1868, as already stated, she left the stage, and since that time has occupied herself with 
writing and lecturing. 

In 1857, she was married to Mr. Edmund A. Delile, but was divorced in 1865. In 1871, she 
was again married to Mr. Wirt Sikes, of New York, but she is known by her married name 
in private only. In public, and as a nom deplume, she retains her maiden name. 



Anna Dickinson. 

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, 1842 , is chiefly known as a lec- 
turer. She has published one book, What Answer, which was well received. 

Miss Dickinson was born in Philadelphia. She was educated at Friends' schools. In 
her early days she had to contend with poverty. But she had indomitable courage, and 
she fought her way through in the face of all obstacles. She had from childhood a special 
admiration for oratory, which influenced and gave direction to her reading and studies. 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESEKT TIME. 501 

Her association with the Friends, among whom it is customary for women to speak in public, 
e<irly raised in lier the ambition to excel in oratory. Her first attempt at public speaking 
was at a meeting of "Progressive Friends," in January, ISGO, when she was barely turned 
of seventeen. Iler first prepared speech was in April of the same year, on Woman's ^york. 
She next taught a district school in Bucks County, Pa., at a salary of $i5 a month. In 1861, 
she had a place in the United States Mint, in Philadelphia. During the war she was in 
great demand as a public speaker, antl developed brilliant oratorical abilities. She has since 
that time made lecturing a profession, her chief topics being woman's work and her right 
to suffrage. 

Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, 1806 , is the author of numerous 

tales and novels which have given her a deserved celebrity. She has been 
conspicuous as a writer for nearly thirty years. During the latter part of 
this period she was also engaged to some extent as a public lecturer. 

Mrs. Smith was born in Cumberland, then called North Yarmouth, Me., about twelve 
miles from the city of Portland, Aug. 12, 1806. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Oakes 
Prince. Her parents moved when she was abotit a year old to the city of Portland, where 
she resided till her removal to New York in 1839. 

She was descended from Huguenot and Pilgrim ancestors ; her mother being a Blanchard, 
and her father a Prince ; the first governor of the Plymouth Colony being her ancestor, as 
was one of the early presidents of Harvard College, Uriau Oakes, whence her name of Oakes. 
She is from a well-to-do and distinguished ancestry. Prince's Point in Yarmouth, Me., was 
a part of the estate purchased by the Princes in 1680, which place still retains its name, and 
the fimiily still live upon laud then purchased. 

Her mother appears to have been no ordinary woman. She is described as being of great 
firmness and dignity of character, and as having a most remarkable memory. It is said 
that she could repeat nearly the whole of the New Testiiment, all the Psalms, the book of 
Job, and the Prophets. Iler conversation was much sought after. 

Miss Prince was married, in 1823, to Seba Smith, the well-known humorist described else- 
where in this volume. They continued to live in Portland until 1839, where pecuniary dis- 
aster obliged a change. 

Mr. Smith had become involved in the land speculations of his native State, which 
ended in the total loss of his property. Mrs. Smith's courage rose with the emergency. 
She spent not an hour in vain regrets or useless repining. Her husband being greatly dis- 
heartened, she bent herself resolutely to aid as best she might in the support of the family. 

Hitherto she had written anonymously, and without any decided plan. She had edited 
papers with Mr. Smith; had written tales and poems, toasts and speeches for youth on 
Fourths of July, reports for committees, etc. ; and enjoyed an acknowledged local reputa- 
tion. Indeed, few women have been more petted and admired by their townspeople than 
she was; now she abandoned all this for the solid, diligent literary toil by which bread was 
to be earned. 

At first she strongly interceded with her husband to go into the woods, where he had 
begun improvements, fifty miles from the settlements, and there build a log hut, and 
till the soil, educate the children, and thus secure them a patrimony. Mr. Smith waa 
totally averse to this plan, and the fiuuily removed to New York. Here they met a kind 
reception, and both husband and wife found ample employment for the pen. 

One of her first works was entitled Riches without Wings, a simple story, which is still a 
favorite in Sabbath-Schools. 

She often wrote columns for newspapers, by retiuest, without name, and contributed 



fj02 AMERICAN LITEHATURE. 

regularly to Godey's, Snowdeirs, and Graham's Magazines, also, for Annuals, Keepsakes, etc, 
innumerable. These contributions have never been collected, but would fill several volumes. 

The Lost Angel is a weird story in which the peculiar mental traits of the author are 
sti'ongly exhibited. The Sinless Child and Other Poems, gav« her reijutation as a poet. 
The Western Captive, Bertha and Lily, The Newsboy, all had large sales, and mucli i»upu- 
larity. To the last work the newsboys of New York owe the establishment of rooms for 
their accommodation, .and many charitable acts for their relief, as before the appearance of 
her work they had been a totally neglected class, and public attention was drawn to tiiem 
by the truthfulness and pathos of her delineations of them. 

After these followed The Bald Eagle, The Sagamere of Saco, founded upon historic facts ; 
"Woman and her Needs; Beauty and Dress; Shadow Land; and several small volumes for 
children. 

In 1870 she published a serial in the Herald of Health, entitled The Two Wives, and in 1871, 
another, entitled Kitty Howard's Journal. 

Mrs. Smith's works have never been collected. Her Poems are numerous : The Sinless 
Child, Roman Tribute, Jacob Leisler, Destiny, three Tragedies, Sonnets, Hymns, and other 
Lyrics. 

Caroline Chesebro. 

Caroline Chesebro, , is tlie author of several well-written 

works of fiction, of which the latest and most powerful is The Foe in the 
Household. 

Miss Chesebro is a native of Canandaigua, N. Y., where she lived until 1835, when she was 
invited to a position in the Packer Institute, Brooklyn. She has the charge of Composition 
in the higher departments of the institute, but lives with her brothers and sister at Pier- 
mont on the Hudson. 

Miss Chesebro has been now twenty years before the public as an author, and has been 
rising steadily in favor. Her works show care and elaboration, and the improvement per- 
ceptible in the later volumes is at once evidence and fruit of honest, painstaking work- 
manship. Besides occasional contributions, both in prose and verse, to the magazines and 
other periodicals, she has issued the following volumes : Dream of Land by Day Light ; Peter 
Carradine; Isa, a Pilgrimage; The Children of Light; Getting Along; Yictoria ; and The 
Foe in the Household. The work last named appeared originally as a serial in the Atlantic 
Monthly. 

" The essential quality of Miss Chesebro's mind is intuition, rather than imagination ; of 
fancy, she makes little use ; her style is that of lucid narration, with the transparency of 
crystal, and no aim at rhetorical effect ; and hence her fictitious writings have the air of a 
rehearsal of facts, rather than of artistic invention. But her insight into the depths of 
human emotion is the faculty from which her productions derive their tone. As a general 
rule, she has no sympathy with the darker passions of our nature ; no delight in the delinea- 
tion of scenes of repulsive wickedness ; but she selects her materials from the common 

heart of every-day humanity Hence the singular reality of all her characters, none 

of whom is without a distinct purpose, or fails in the exhibition of consistency and unity, 
which, in her writings, produce a more powerful impression than any desire of artificial dra- 
matic skill. The record of their experience, which is less startling than natural, reads more 
like personal biography than a creation of art, and wo become interested in their fortunes as 
in the adventures of people whom we have known." — Mr. Ripley^ in the New York Tribwie. 



mmi^ 



FROM 1850 TO THE PEESENT TIME. 103 

Mrs. Mary J. Holmes. 

Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, , is the author of a large number of 

tales and novels, which have been very popular. 

Mrs. Hulmes'a maiden name was Ilawes. She is a niece of the late Dr. Joel Hawes, of 
Hartford, Conn. She was born at Brookfiold, Worcester County, Mass., where Hho spent tlie 
first fil'tecu years of her life. She received most of her school education there and in Wil- 
braham. She was foud of books, and read whatever came in her way, from Baxter's Saint's 
Rest to Goethe's Sorrows of Werther. She developed very early a taste for fiction. When 
quite a young girl, she used always to have in her mind some story which she thought out 
at night after going to bod, and during the day she lived in a kind of ideal world and talked 
with unseen people, whom she knew by name and whose society she preferred to that of hur 
young companions. She w;is sent to school at three years of age; studiiid English grammar 
and arithmetic at six; taught a district school at thirteen; and published her first article 
at fifteen. 

VJThen just fifteen, she left home and came to Richmond, near Canandaigua, western New 
York, where she taught for some time, aud where she was married to Mx-. Daniel Ilolmes, a 
graduato of Yale, and a lawyer by profession. 

After marriage, she lived for a short time in Versailles, Ky. Here and in the country 
around she saw much of Southern life as it then existed, aud gathered materials for Tempest 
and Sunshine, her first book, which was published in 1854. Another book was brought out 
soon after, called English Orphans, the scene of which is laid in lier native town, Brookfield. 
Keither of these books made much sensation, but they were received with favor as the first 
efforts of a young author, aud both sell better to-day than they did when first published, 
Q'his is true also of her other works. They never go up like a rocket, but they sell better 
and better from year to year. 

The account which Mrs. Holmes gives of her views and aims as an author, though not 
written for publication, is the best commentary upon her works : " In writing, it is my aim 
to be as true to nature as possible, and I usually try to be very accurate with regard to 
localities, — I am even particular about the starting of trains from certain points. This is, 
perhaps, one reason why people say of my stories, 'that they seem so lifelike, and read as if 
they must be true.' I try to avoid the sensational, and never deal in murders or robberies 
or ruined young girls ; but rather in domestic life as I know it to exist. I never avowedly 
attack the evils of the day, or ^vrite at some great principle, as some do ; but I mean always 
to write a good, pure, and natural story, such as motliers are willing their daughters sliould 
read, and such as will do good instead of harm ; and in this I think I have succeeded." 

Mrs. Holmes lives at the pleasant village of Rockport, near Rochester, N. Y. 

The following is a list of her publications: Lena Rivers; Darkness and Daylight; Tem- 
pest and Sunshine ; Marian Grey; Meadow Brook ; ilnglish Orphans; Dora Deane ; Cousin 
Maude; Homestead on the Hillside; Hugh Worthington ; The Cameron Pride; Rose Mather; 
Ethelyn's Mistake ; Millbank. Some of these have reached a sale of 50,000. The aggregate 
Bale of the fourteen volumes is said to he over 500,000. 

Mrs. Terhune, — ^* Marion Harland.** 

Mary Virginia Teriiune, , in 1854 acquired a liigh repu- 
tation by her novel, Alone, written under the assumed name of "Marion 
Harland." Siie has written many other novels since that time, and with a 
uniformity of excellence that is remarkable. 

Mrs. Terhuue'd umideu name was Hawes. She was born in Virgiuia, daughter of Samuel 



504 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

P. Ilawes, at tliat time a mercbant of Richmond. She was married in 185G to Rev. E. P, 
Terhime, D. D., then a Virginia pastor, but now in charge of the First Reformed Church, 
Newark, N. J. 

The best evidence of the substantial value of Mrs. Terhune's works is that they continue 
to be in demand long after the excitement of the first publication is over. Those published 
eighteen years ago sell now almost as freely as the new ones. 

Hardly one of her books has sold less than ten thousand copies within twelve months after 
it was issued. Most of them have been republished in England — two were translated into 
French, and two at least received the honor of a Leipsic edition. 

Of her married hfe, and its effect upon her authorship, Mrs. Terhune writes thus : " With- 
out unveiling to the world an inner life, which has been singularly happy, I may say that 
to my husband's sympathy and encouragement, to his freedom from the vulgar prejudice 
against literary women and fiction ; to his wise and loving guardianship of my health, and 
judicious supervision of my studies, I owe much of my success in my chosen profession. No 
woman ever had a tenderer friend — no author a better adviser. We have worked together, 
believing our mission to be the same — to make our kind better and happier." 

The following is a list of her novels : Alone ; Hidden Path ; Moss Side ; Nemesis ; Miriam ; 
At Last; Helen Gardner; Sunnybank ; Husbands and Homes ; Ruby's Husband; Phemie's 
Temptation ; The Empty Heart. Besides these, she published in 1872, Common Sense in the 
Household, a Manual of Practical Housewifery. 



Mrs. Sue Petigru King. 

Mrs. Sue Petigrij King, , of Charleston, S. C, has a high 

reputation as a novelist. " Among the graceful, airy, and piquant writers 
of fiction in the South, Mrs. King stands clearly first." — J. Wood Davidson. 

Mrs. King is a native of Charleston, daughter of the late distinguished lawyer, James L. 
Petigru. Her husband, Mr. Ileni-y King, lost his life during the war. The following are 
her principal works : Busy Moments of an Idle Woman, a collection of Stories, 185-1 ; Lily, 
a novel, 1855 ; Sylvia's World, 1859 ; Gerald Gray's Wife, a novel, 1866. 

Mrs. Mart S. Whitaker, , a native and resident of South Carolina, has published 

a novel, Albert Hastings, and a volume of poems. Mrs. Whitaker is a daughter of Rev. 
Samuel Furman. She was married first to Mr. John Miller, of Edinburgh, and afterwards, 
in 1849, to Daniel K. Whitaker, editor of the Southern Quarterly Review. 

Mrs. Caroline H. Jervet, 1823 , is a native of Charleston, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. 

Gilman, mentioned elsewhere in this volume. She was married in 1840 to Mr. Glover, and 
in 1865 to Mr. Jervey. She has written two njavels, Vernon Grove, and Helen Courtenay's 
Promise ; besides tales and poems. 

Mrs. Rosalie Miller Murphy, , a native of South Carolina, was married in 

1865 to D. Z. T. Murphy, of Alabama. In 1867 they removed to New York. Mrs. Murphy 
has written Destiny, a Life as it is, a novel ; Mistrust, a novel ; Stray Waifs, a miscellany ; 
and Poems. 

Miss Clara V. Dargan, , a native and resident of South Carolina, has published 

some brilliant short poems, and two novels, Riverlauds, and Helen Howard. Both appeared 
originally as prize stories. 

Miss Lodise Elenjat, , of Virginia, has published the following books : Rising 

Young Men and Other Tale's ; Ceusoria Lictoria of Facts and Folks ; Letters and Miscellanies. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 505 

Mrs. Martha Harrison Robinson, , is a Virginian by birth and residence, 

though of late years she hiis lived in Philadelphia. She was born in Lynchburg, and edu- 
cated there by Rev. M illiani S. Reid. She w;is uiarrioil at sixteen, but being fond of books 
and literature, she carried her studies into married life. Besides Latin, which she studied 
at school, she has made herself accomplished in French and Italian, and is more than usually 
conversant with the literature of those languages as well as with her own. Tlie following 
is a list of her publications: Travels in Italy, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, translated from the 
French of Jules Janiu ; Recollections of a Zouave before Sebastopol, from the French of May- 
nard ; a series of story-books for the 3'oung, from the French of Guizot's daughter. She 
translated also A History of Normandy, from Jules Janin, but the work is not yet published. 
Her only original work yet published is a novel, Helen Erskine, showing much reading and 
much creative power. It was well received. 

Miss Sarah J. C. Whittlesey, , the aut^ior of several popular novels and tales, 

was born at Williamstown, N. C. She removed to Virginia in 1848, and lives at present in 
Alexandria. The following is a list of her volumes: Heart DrojiS from Memory's Urn, a 
collection of poems; The Stranger's Stratagem and other Stories; Herbert Hamilton, or the 
Bas Bleu, a novel; Bertha the Beauty ; Spring Buds and Summer Blossoms, poems; The Ua- 
vedded Wife; Stella's Stepmother. Slie has written a number of prize tales. 

Mrs. Lizzie Petit Cutler, , a native of Milton, Va., but a resident of New York 

city, has published throe novels. Light and Darkness ; Household Mysteries, a romance of 
Southern life; The Stars of the Crowd, or Men and Women of the Day. As Miss Petit, she 
gave, in 1860, a series of public readings, with gixni success, and was on the point of going 
upon the stage as an actress. 

Miss Mart J. S. Upshur, , of Norfolk, Va., has published a novel, called Confed- 
erate Notes, which attracted a good deal of attention. She has contributed largely to peri- 
odical literature, both in prose and verse, generally under the name of " Fanny Fielding." 
She was born at Rose Cottage, the old Upshur homestead, Accomac County. 

Miss Mary Tucker Magill, , of Winchester, Va., has, within the last year, writ- 
ten two novels which give evidence of no little creative power. These are, The Holcombes, 
and Women. They contain pictures of Virginia sociivl life, and show unusual skill in de- 
scription g.nd in delineation of character. Miss Magill was born at the residence of her 
grandfather. Judge Henry St. George Tucker, in Jefferson County, Va. She spent much of 
her childhood at the University of Virginia, where her father. Dr. A. T. M;tgill, was Pro- 
fessor of Medicine. The rest of her life has been divided between Richmond and Winches- 
ter. Having lost all her property by the war, she h:vs since that time maintained a school 
for young ladies at Winchester, and has been successful as a teacher. 



Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson. 

Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, , of Mobile, has published 

several novels, characterized by great power of originality. Thc'^e are, 
Benlah, Macaria, and St, Elmo. There is much in the vigorous conception 
of these works to remind the reader of Jane Eyre and Villette; and the 
writer ha.s been called by her admirers the American Charlotte Bronte. 

Mrs. Wilson's maiden name was Augusta J. Evans, and by this name she is most known, 
as nearly all her books were written before marriage. She was Itorn near Columbus, Oa., 
but removed in infancy with her father's family to Galveston, and thence to San Antonio, 
43 



506 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Ts. Tlie family retnrned nfterward to Georgia, and finally settled near Mobile, Ala. She 
Wiis married in 1868 to Mr. L. M. ^Vilson, President of the Mobile and Montgomery railroad. 

Her first publication, a novel called Inez, issued in 1855, was a failure. Uer second, 
Beulah,.in 1839, Avas immediately and completely successful. "Everybody read Beulab. It 
ran through ten or fifteen editions, possibly more, in a few months. Its fresh, vigorous 
style stimulated a lively interest. There was living thought iii the book. That wi« much. 
The strong vein of j^sychological reasoning tasked the enthnsi;ism of many readers of love- 
stories; but still everybody read it. Those who did not understand it desired to appear to 
do so; while those who did understand it enjoyed it. The many had recently read Jane 
Eyre, and Shirley and Villette with admiration. The author of Beulah was styled the Char- 
lotte Bronte of Ainerica. The compliment had some meaning in it." — J. Wood Davidson. 

Macaria appeared in 1864, and St. Elmo in 1866. Both occasioned discussion and-criticism, 
but are admitted by all to show remarkable power. The latter has been cleverly travestied 
in a story called St. Twelmo. 

Mrs. E. TT. Bellamy, , a teacher in a Seminary at Eutaw, Greene County, Ala., 

has published a novel, " Four Oaks," that is well spoken of by the critics. Mrs. Bellamy 
"writes nnder the name of Kampa Thorpe. Besides her novel, she has written, both in prose 
and verse, for the periodicals. 

Miss Mart An\e Cruse, , a native and resident of Huntsville, Ala., has pub- 
lished a novel, Cameron Hall, a Story of the Civil War; also several Sunday-School books, 
The Little Episcopalian, Bessie Melville, etc. She is engaged in teaching. 

Miss Catharine Webb Barber, , is a native of Deerfield, Mass., but a resident of 

Alabama, to which State she went after the death of her father in 1843. Besides editing 
several periodicals, she has published two volumes : Tales for the Freemason's Fireside; The 
Three Golden Links. 

Mrs. Warfield and Mrs. Lee. 

Mrs. Catharine Aistne Warfield, 1817 ■, and Mrs. Eleanor 

Percy Lee, 1820-1850, gained some reputation thirty years ago by a vol- 
ume of Poems by Two Sisters. The surviving sister has within a few years 
gained a high name as a writer of fiction, especially by her novel, The 
Household of Bouverie. 

These ladies, sisters, were born near Natchez, daughters of Major Nathaniel A. TTare. 
Their mother having become hopelessly insane, their father sold out his estates, and re- 
moved to Philadelphia, partly for the better care of his wife, and partly for the education 
of his daughters. Having ample means and leisure, and being an accomplished scholar, 
he took upon himself the task of their principal studies, employing masters to give them 
lessons in special branches. The family afterwards lived in Cincinnati, and both daughters 
were married there, Catharine to Mr. Elisha Warfield of Lexington, Ky., and Eleauor to 
Mr. H. W. Lee of Ticksburg, Miss. 

These ladies i)ublished jointly two volumes, Poems by Two Sisters of the West, in 1843; 
and The Indian Chamber and Other Tales, in 1846. 

Mrs. Warfield, the sur\-iving sister, lives with her husband on a farm near Louisville, Ky. 
She has published, since the death of her sister. The Household of Bouverie; and The Ro- 
mance of Beauseincourt. The former of these is commended in high terms by the critics. 

Mrs. Marie Louisa Clack, , of New Orleans, published, in 1SC6, a volume. Our 

Refugee Household, giying vivid pictures of the life, habits, privatious, and sacrifices of 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 507 

the Southern people during the war; also, a juvenile gift-book, General Leo and Santa 
Claus. 

Mrs. Emma Moffett Wtn:je, 184-1 , daughter of Major Henry Moffett, was born in 

Alabama, but removed early to Columbus, Ga. At the ago of five she was placed under the 
tuition of Mrs. Caroline Lee Ilontz; in her fifteenth year, she went to the Patapsco Insti- 
tute, near Baltimore ; and in ISGO, she entered the Spingler Institute, New York, but re- 
turned homeinlSGl. She was married to Mr. Wynne in 18G4. During the war she con- 
tributed to the Field and Fireside, and in 1867, she published her only volume, Cragfont, a 
novel. 

Mrs. Eliza Lofton Puqh, , is a native and a resident of Louisiana. Her maiden 

name was Philips. She was married at the age of seventeen to the lion. W. W. Pugh, a 
planter of Assumption Parish, where she still lives. She published, in 1S67, Not a Hero, 
a novel, and has written sketches, literary and political, for the New York World, and for 
various New Orleans papers. She writes under the name of Arria. 

Mns. Sarah A. Dorset, , is a native of Natchez, Miss., the daughter of Mr, 

Thomas G. P. Ellis. She was married, in 1853, to Mr. Samuel W. Dorsey, of Tensas Parish, 
La. Being a religious woman, she took great interest in the welfare of the slaves belonging 
to her husband's plantation, and devoted her Sundaj's to teaching them. This first led her 
to authorship. Slie is an earnest Episcopalian, and employing the ritual of that church in 
the religious services of the negroes, wrote to the New York Churchman an account of her 
experiences, in reply to some queries on the subject in that paper. The editor of the Church- 
man gave to her communication the signature of Filia Ecclesiae, which signature she has 
since adopted, or rather the first part of it, .signing herself usually as Filia. 

Mrs. Dorsey has published two works of fiction: Lucia Dare, a novel, by Filia ; Agnca 
Graham, a novel. Both are stories of the war. The work of hers which has won the highest 
commendations is A Life of Governor Allen, of Louisiana. This is regarded as a work of 
great historical value, and an admirable specimen of biographical writing. 

Mrs. Kate A. Dubose, 1828 , a native of England, but a resident of Sparta, Ga., and 

wife of Mr. Charles W. Diibose, has published, besides numerous fugitive pieces, a novel 
called The Pastor's Household, or Lessons on the Eleventh Commandment. 

Miss Dupuy. 

Eliza Ann" Dupuy, , has written a large number of novels 

and novelettes, and acquired by them both name and money. She is one 
of tlie regular contributors to the New York Ledger. 

Miss Dupuy was born in Petersburg, Va. After the death of her father, the family having 
met with reverses, she engaged as governess in the family of Mr. P^llis, in Natchez, Miss., 
where she was tlirown much into the society of Catharine and Eleanor Ware (afterwards 
Mrs. Warfield and Mrs. Lee). She wrote while at Natcliez her first novel, The Conspirator, 
a story of Aaron Burr. This proving successful, she gradually gave up teaching, and has 
since addicted herself systematically to authorship as a i)rofession. She writes regularly 
four hours every njorning, and employs her afternoons in revi.sion. Slie is under contract 
to furnish Mr. Bonner with a thousaml pages annually. She lives in Fleniingsburg, Ivy. 

The following are Miss Dupuy's princii)al ntivels: Meeton, a Tale of the Revolution ; The 
Conspirator; Celeste, or the Pirate's Daujihter; The Separation; The Divorce; The Co- 
quette's Punishment; Florence, or the Fatal Vow; The Concealed Treasure; Ashleigh, a 
tale of the llevolutiou ; Emma Walton; Tho Country Neighlwrhood ; The Huguenot E.\ik'9, 



508 AMERICAN LITETvATURE. 

containing references to the history of her own family, who are of Huguenot stock ; and The 
Planter's Daughter, a story of Southern life, of which the scene lies near New Orleans. 

"The tale is in an eminent degree sensational, — in the style of Mrs. Southworth and 
Prof. Peck, with an inclination in the direction of Miss Braddon. It is redolent of murders, 
madness, tears, robbery, revolvers, corpses, and confusions ; and trips lightly through the 
mazes of guilt, blood-aud-thunder-ous declamation, ti-avels, stays, love-making, and Italian 
gallantry." — J. Wood Davidson, 

Mrs. Georgiana A. McLeod, , of Baltimore, was born at Pensacola, Fla., 

daughter of Isaac Ilulse, M. D., then surgeon of the Naval Hospital at that place. She was 
married to Alexander W. McLeod, D. D.,of Halifax, N.S.,and lived for a few years in Halifax. 
She is at present living in Baltimore, and is principal of The Southern Literary Institution, 
a school for young ladies. Mrs. McLeod has paid attention to literature, as well as educa- 
tion, and has published the following works: Sunbeams and Shadows, 1851; Ivy Leaves 
from the Old Homestead, 1853; Theirs and Mine; Sea-Drifts, 1867; Bright Memories. 
" These volumes are eminently moral, sometimes religious, and always temperate in being 
removed from the sensational and melodramatic. Those who dote on Miss Braddon's style 
of novel will call Mrs. McLeod tame; but those who enjoy the religio-social .style of Miss 
Manning will pronounce Mrs. McLeod's works charming." — J. Wood Davidson. 

Mrs. Anne Moncure Seemdller, , formerly Miss Crane, was born in Baltimore, 

and educated there in the school of Mr. Morrison. After marriage she resided in New York, 
where Mr. Seemuller was engaged in business. They are living at present in Southern 
Germany. Mrs. Seemuller has written for various magazines, chiefly Putnam and the 
Galaxy, and has published three no\els, Emily Chester, Opportunity, and Reginald Archer, 
all of which have been well received. 

Miss Nellie Marshall, 1847 , is daughter of the well-known Gen. Humphrey 

Marshall, of Kentucky. She began writing for the periodicals in 1863. She has published 
two volumes : Gleanings from Fireside Fancies, in 1866 ; As By Fire, a novel, in 1869. The 
latter is a tale " of passion-life, earnest, intense, and full of pathos." It is admitted on all 
hands to be a work of much power, but slightly overwrought. 

Mrs. Sallie R. Ford, 1828 , is a native of Kentucky, her maiden name being Roches- 
ter. She was married, in 1855, to Rev. S. H. Ford, a Baptist preacher of Louisville. Soon 
after their marriage, Mr. Ford became proprietor of the Christian Repository, a religious 
monthly, to which Mrs. Ford contributed. During the war, they lived for a time in Mobile. 
They afterward removed to Memphis, where Mr.. Ford edits the Southern Repository. Mrs. 
Ford has published the following volumes: Grace Truman, or Love and Principle, 1857; 
May Bunyan, the Dreamer's Blind Daughter, 1860; Romance of Freemasonry; Raids and 
Romance of Morgan and his Men, 1864. Grace Truman, published originally as a serial in 
the Repository, made a reputation both for the author and the magazine. The sale of the 
work in book form reached thirty thousand in three years. 

Mrs. Jane T. Cross, 1817 , is a native of Harrodsburg, Ky., daughter of Mr. Chinn. 

bhe was educated at Shelbyville, and at eighteen became the wife of Mr. James P. Harding, 
of Bardstown. In 1848, she was married to the Rev. Dr. Cross, of the Methodist Church, at 
tliat time Professor in Transylvania University. Since that time she has resided in various 
lilaces in Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Besides contributions to 
jieriodicals, Mrs. Cross has published the following volumes: Heart-Blossoms for My Little 
Daughters; "Wayside Flowerets ; Bible Gleanings ; Drift- Wood; Gonzalvo de Cordova, trans- 
lated from the Spanish ; Duncan Adair, a story of the war ; Azile, also in part a war novel. 
Mrs. Cross writes very sweet, and sometimes highly original and suggestive verse. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 509 

Mrs. Julia C. (Ripley) Dokr, 1825 , is a native of Cliarlcston, S. C, but she lias resided 

cliiefly in tho Nortlieni States. Shn commenced publication in 1848, since wliicli time slie 
has been a frequent contributor, both in prose and verse, to the periodicals. Her separate 
publications are: Lawrence, a novel; Farmingdale, a novel; Sibyl Huntington, a novel; 
Letters to Alice, a Young Wife ; Letters to Philip, a Young Husband. She has in prepara- 
tion another, to be called Retribution. 

Maria Cummisgs, 18GG, published in 1854 a work of fiction. The Lamplighter, which 

had a prodigious temporary popularity, 70,000 copies having been sold in a single year. 
Three years afterward, she published another work of the same sort, Mabel, said by critics 
to be superior to the first, though it did not make so great a popular sensation. 

Mr. and Mrs. Denison. 

Rev. Charles Wheeler Denison, 1809 , and liis wife, Mary 

Andrews Denison, 1826 , have contributed largely to current litera- 
ture, in various forms, and have published a number of volumes, -which 
liave been well received. 

Mr. Denison is a native of New London County, Conn. He began his literary career in 
liis minority, as the editor and publisher of a paper in his native town. He was soon after 
called to New York, where he was engaged by Arthur Tappan to edit the first anti-slavery 
paper published in that State, The Emancipator. This journal led the way to the American 
anti-slavery publications of the last quarter of a century, in the preparation of which Mr. 
Denison took his pai't. 

He has been a magazine writer for several years, and a contributor to the columns of 
papers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. 

During the war, he wrote a popular life of Gen. Grant. 

While residing in London, Mr. Denison was editor of the American paper in that city, 
having previously spent some time among the operatives of Lancashire, presenting the facts 
of history supporting the Union cause. 

He is the author of a volume of Poems, entitled Out at Sea, published in London ; Paul 
St. Clair, a story founded on facts, illustrating the necessity of total abstinence from into-xi- 
cating drinks ; The Frontiersman, composed of incidents in the life of a laborious Western 
missionary. 

Mrs. Denison is a native of Cambridge, Mass. On her marriage with Mr. Denison, she 
became connected with The Olive Branch, of which he was editor. Her sketches soon 
attracted attention, and were extensively copied. Removing to Washington, D. C, she wrote 
her first articles for leading magazines. These, with others, were collected in book-form, 
and published under the title of Home Pictures. 

Accompanying her husband to British Guiana, West Indies, where he was United States 
consul, her pen Wiis employed on a variety of tropical sketches that appeared in the homo 
magazines. 

Wiiile located, subsequentl}', in Philadelphia, Pa., she wrote several books that have ob- 
tained a wide circulation, mainly in Sunday-School libraries. 

When in England, in 1867, she wrote for different periodicals in that country and the 
United States. A domestic book, illustrating forest scenes, called Among the Squirrels, was 
issued in London. 

Her works are mostly of a home character; are all designed to throw a charm around the 

hearth-stone, and to give instruction as well as pleasure to the rising generation. She is 

the author of over twenty books of this class. The following are the chief: Home Pictures; 

Gertrude Russell ; Carrie Hamilton ; Jennie Boardman ; Opposite the Jail ; Old Hepaey ; 

43* 



510 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Andy Liitrell ; Out of Prison ; Talbury Girls ; Kept from Idols ; Noble Sister ; Lute Falconer ; 
Led to the Light; The Mill Agent; Chantry's Boy; and Strawberry Ilill. 
Mr. and Mrs. Deuison reside in Washington. 

Maria J. B. Browne, , is a native of Northampton, Mass., and a resident of New 

York city. Educated for the teacher's profession, she has found in the school-room a sphere 
for the successful exercise of her talents, and a field of untiring influence and usefulness. 
She has, however, reserved leisure for the indulgence of her literary tastes and abilities, 
and has devoted herself with ardor to the study of foreign languages, especially the Span- 
ish, in which she has attained unusual culture. Miss Browne has w-ritten largely and accept- 
ably for magazines and newspapers, and published several small volumes : Margaret, Laura 
Huntley, Story of a "Western Sabbath-School, etc. 

Through her acquaintance with the Spanish language, she has made a translation into 
Spanish of three little books ; La Rosa y El Trebol, Anita, and La Biblia Prestada. The 
last, The Borrowed Bible, written by her sister. Miss S. II. Browne, has also been rendered 
into Portuguese. The subject of this notice has translated from the French and Spanish 
much miscellaneous matter, and from the latter language A History of Granada, by Jose 
Francisco de Luque. 

Sara H. Browne, , sister of the preceding, was born and has passed the greater 

part of a quiet and useful life in the lovely and picturesque valley of the Connecticut, and 
is a resident of Springfield, Mass. 

She has devoted much of her literary leisure to the preparation of pleasant and profitable 
reading for the young. Among the score of little volumes she has written may be named. 
The Book for the Eldest Daughter, The Borrowed Bible, Philip Alderton, Maggie Manealy, etc. 

Her latest production is a compilation of a great variety and amount of valuable piii>ular 
information, in a work for schools and families, entitled A Manual of Commerce. It prom- 
ises to supply a need long felt by practical teachers and intelligent students. 

Miss Browne has also been a constant contributor to magazine and newspaper literature, 
both in graceful poetry and trenchant prose. 

Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. 

Mrs. Julia McKair Wright, 1840 , has been for the last fifteen 

years a most prolific writer of tales. Her stories are all argumentative, 
being directed towards some institution or custom against which she desires 
to do battle. She has written several in the cause of Temperance, and some 
against Southern institutions. But her chief assaults, both in number and 
ability, have been directed against the Catholics. 

Mrs. Wright was born in Oswego, N. Y. She describes herself as having been brought up 
among books, and as knowing even in childhood more about authors than about her play- 
mates. Among the earliest purposes that she can recollect was that of becoming an author. 
Another of her earliest purposes was that of doing battle against the Catholics, and her first 
Sunday-School books were written mainly with a view to acquire facility in this kind of 
comjwsition, in order that in due time she might use the weapon more efifectivcly in her 
chosen arena. 

The number of small volumes that she has produced is very large for so young a writer, 
the count already going beyond sixty, although she began no longer ago than 1858. She 
considers these, however, only as preliminary and preparatory to her main purpose, which 
is to produce first-class works of fiction, especially on such themes as those suggested by her 
three latest and largest tales, Almost a Nun, 1868; Almost a Priest, 1S70; Priest and Nun, 
187 L 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 511 

Miss Lucy Larcom, 1S26 , has not written much, but what she has written has been 

of a kind to make the public desirous of more. She is a native and resident of Beverly 
Farms, Mass. She was at one time a factory operative at Lowell, and wiis one of those who 
contributed to Harriet Farley's Ix)well Offering. Siibscquently she wasengagoil in teaching, 
in Illinois. She is at present a.^sociate editor of the Young Folks. She is the author of a 
volume of Poems, and of a volume called Breathings of the Better Life, a compilation from 
religious writei-s. 

Mrs. Mett\ Victoria Tictor, 1831 , daughter of Mr. Fuller, and sister of Mi-s. Frances 

Fuller Rarritt, w;\s l)orn at Erie, Pa, She removed in 1839 to Wooster, 0. ; in ISoG, she was 
married to Mr. 0. J; Victor, and in the year following removed to New York city, where she 
and her husband pursue a literary life. She began authorship very joung, contributing to 
the pi-ess tales and poems at the age of thirteen and fourteen ; and at the age of fifteen, she 
published, in Boston, a romance, The Last Days of Tull. At the age of sixteen, she was the 
"bright particular star" of Willis in the Home Journal, who gave her the name of the 
"Singing Sibyl." in 1S51, Poems of Imagination and Sentiment, by the sisters Frances and 
Metta Fuller, appeared, edited by Griswold. The same j'ear, a^iother volume, by Metta alone, 
Wiis published, called Fresh Leaves from Western Woods. In tlie following year she pub- 
lished The Senator's Son. a Plea for the Maine Law, of which ten editions were i.ssued in this 
country, and C0,000 copies were sold in England. The following are some of her other 
numerous publications: Fa.shionable Dissipation; The Two Mormon Wives; The Arctic 
Queen, a poem; Miss Slimmen's Widow; The Tallow Family in America; Alice Wilde; 
The Backwoods Bride; Uncle Ezekiel; Maura Guinea; Unionist's Daughter; Gold flunters; 
Jo Daviess' Client ; Myrtle ; Emerald Ncscklace ; Laughing Eyes ; The Dead Letter, etc. She 
has al.so written The Cook's Manual, The Housewife's Manual, and The Recipe Book, and has 

contributed to many of the leading periodicals. — Mrs. Fr.inces Fcllee Barritt, 182(5 , 

sister of the preceding, was born at Rome, N. Y. When she w;is only four yeare old, her 
father, Mr. Fuller, removed into the "pinery" of northern Pennsylvania, and thence in IS-O 
to Wooster, 0. In 1852 she removed to Michigan, and in 1853 she was married to Mr. Jackson 
Barritt, of Pontiac, in that State. In 1S55, she went still farther west, but afterwards re- 
moved to New York city. Her reputation as a writer was chiefly before her marriage, while 
still a resident of Ohio. She began writing for the press at the age of fourteen. At the age 
of twenty-two, slie was a favorite contributor of Willis in the Home Journal, and was highly 
commended by Poe. A 7, lea, a Tnigedy, wiis written about that time. In 1851, a volume, 
Poems of Imagination and Sentiment, by her and her sister Metta, (Mrs. Victor), was pub- 
lished, edited by Griswold. 

COMPOUND INTEREST. — Syifrs. Fictor. 

Ben Adam had a golden coin one day, 

Which he put out at interest with a Jew; 
Year after year, awaiting hiui, it lay. 

Until the doubled coin two pieces grew, 
And these two, f.>ur, — so on, till people said, 
"How rich Ben Adam is!" and bowed the servile head. 

Ben Sclim had a golden coin that day. 

Which to a stranger, asking alms, he gave, 
Who went, rejoicing, on his unknown way. 

Ben Selim dioil, too poor to own a grave ; 
But when his soul reached heaven, angils, with pride, 
Showed him the wealth to which his coin had multiplied. 



512 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Miss Amanda M. Douglas, , was born in the city of New York, but removed to 

New Jersey when she M-as six years old. At the age of ten she returned to New York, where 
she. complete! her e(iucation, leaving school at the age of fifteen. Soon after, the family re- 
moved to Newark, N. J., where slie still lives. She manifested even in childhood an inven- 
tive faculty, and often had a circle of youthful listeners, while she }nade up for them imag- 
inary narratives. At school, likewise, she had great readiness in composition. After leav- 
ing school, though burdened with the usual domestic cares, she kept up her habits of study, 
anil read largely some of the best English authors. Her ambition was to become an artist. 
But as she could not command the means for this, and as, through the sickness and misfor- 
^tuuL's of others, the cares of a household devolved upon her, she turned to literature, as 
sonietliing which could be cultivated without leaving the seclusion of home, and without 
neglecting domestic duties. 

Her published books are the following: In Trust; Stephen Dane; Claudia; Trying the 
"World ; "With Fate against Him. Besides these, which are novels, she has w^ritten a number 
of religions story-books for children. 

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 

Mrs. Adeline D. T. Whitney, 1824 , has made a most favorable 

impression as a writer of tales. Faith Gartney's Girlhood especially has been 
a very general favorite. 

Mrs. Whitney was born in Boston, daughter of Enoch Train, a merchant of that city. She 
was educated in Boston, being one of the pupils of that prince of teachers, George B. Emer- 
son. She was married in 1848 to Mr. Seth D. Whitney, of Milton, Mass. All the earlier 
years of her married life were too much occupied with domestic cares to afford much leisure 
for literary pursuits, although she wrote occasionally for the religious papers and magazines. 
Her first venture in the book-line was the Book of Rhymes, in 1859. Her other volumes 
since that have been : Mother Goose for Grown Folks ; Boys at Chequassett ; Faith Gartney's 
Girlhood; The Gayworthys; A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life; Patience Strong's Out- 
ings; Hitherto; Real Folks; We Girls. Some of her poems contributed to the Atlantic 
Monthly have been of a high order. 

EsTELLE Anna (Robinson) Lewis, 182 1 , is a native of Baltimore. She was sent at an 

early age to the celebrated seminary of Mrs. Willard, at Troy, where for several years she 
Avas an ambitions and successful student in the higher branches of learning taught there. 
Edgar A. Poe, a fastidious critic, was much struck with the classical finish displayed in some 
of her writings, and expressed a high estimate of her scholarship and her literary abilities. 
Besi(lf»s a familiar aciiuaintance with Latin and Greek, she speaks and Avrites fluently 
French, Spaui.^h, and Italian. She is known chiefly as a poet. The volumes Records of the 
Heart, Child of the Sf-a, I>over of the Minstrel, etc., give evidence of a cultivated taste and 
of no little imagination. She has written a good deal also in prose. Beginning while still 
a school-girl, as a contributor to the Family Magazine, of Albany, and continuing, after her 
marriage to J. D. Lewis, Esq., a lawyer of Brooklyn, in the Democratic Review, and other 
leading periodicals, she has contributed a large number of essays, romances, and novelettes. 

Miss Adeline Trafton, of Charlestown, Mass., has published a book, the American Girl 
Abroad, which was received with great eclat. 

Mrs. J. E. McConaught, 1834 , has made several valuable contributions to Sunday- 
School literature. The maiden name of this lady was Julia E. Loomis. She was born at 
Twinsburg, Ohio. Her father, Elisha Loomis, removed from New ILaven, Conn., to Ohio, in 
1817, being one of the early settlers of the Western Reserve. The first twelve years of her 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 513 

life were spent on a pleasant farm, where she acquiretl an abundant stock of sound health, 
which, thus far, lias nevir failed. Her father then removed to Hudson, 0., where she en- 
joyed the advantages of an excellent seminary for young ladies, taught by Miss Mary 
Strong. This faithful teacher lias a monument more lasting than marble, in the souls of 
over one hundred pupils hoi)efi:lly converted through her instrumentality. It was through 
her influence that Mrs. McConaughy's interest in the subject of religion was first awakened. 
She united with the Congi'egational church at Hudson, at the age of fourteen. 

She began early to teach in Miss Strongs scliool, and was engaged there, and in similar 
institutions, for several years. 

She was married to Rev. N. McConaughy, in New York city, June 14, 1868, and soon after 
removed to Millville, N. J., which was her home for eight years. She afterwards spent two 
years at Swedesburo, N. J., when she removed to her present home at Ehvood. 

From seven years of age, she was an insatiable reader. A fall fi-om a carriage which broke 
her ankle, when but ten years old, imprisoned her in the house for some months, and tended 
still more to develop this taste. The libmry to which she had access was the garret of a 
neighbor, well stocked with files of old newspapers, a few magazines, and some volumes of 
"Waverley. 

Her first article for the press was a little one on "Learning Hymns," published in the New 
York Evangelist in 1855. Since then she has written considerably for the religious news- 
papers, for The Ladies' Repository, and Mother's Journal, and a few juvenile magazines and 
papers ; also regularly for a number of years for the household department in two agricul- 
tural papers. 

The following is a list of her volumes, all Sunday-School story-books: The Widow's Sew- 
ing-Machine ; Hours with My Pictu re-Book ; Archie at the Sea-Side; Respect the Burden; 
How to be Beautiful ; The Little Brook and its Travels; Minnie's Thinking Cap; The I'rize 
Bible and Other Stories ; Clarence; 100 Gold Dollars ; The Hard Master. 



Mrs. Baker, — '^ Madeline Leslie." 

Mrs. Harriette Newell Woods Baker, 1815 , known in letters 

almost exclusively by the assumed name of ** Mrs. Madeline Leslie," is un- 
equalled as a writer of Sunday-School story-books. Her productiveness 
has been prodigious. Her books, too, have had a uniformity of excellence 
and an unflagging popularity as remarkable as their number. She has pub- 
lished, up to this time, no less than one hundred and sixty distinct volumes, 
and the annual sales vary from two hundred and fifty thousand to half a 
million. 

Mrs. Baker was born in Andover, Mass. She is the daughter of the late Rev. Leonard 
Woods, D. D., for many years President and Professor of Christian Theology in the Seminary 
at Andover. She possessed by nature a nervous temperament, a quick sensibility and per- 
ception, and a lively imagination ; and she early displayed remarkable talents for composi- 
tion. 

While she was a little girl in the nursery she often amused herself for hours with her fan- 
cied heroes and heroines in all jiossible dilemmas, from which her invention sought to rescue 
them. In her eleventh year, she sent a short story to N. P. Willis, tlK-n publisher and pro- 
prietor of a small paper called The Youth's Companion. The article was accepted and 
printed in the next issue, a silver dollar being sent the young authoress in payment for it, 
with the request that she M'ould become, as she did, and long continuoil to be, a regular con- 
tributor. 

She was educated at the Abbott Female Seminary in Andover, though her fifteenth year 

2H 



514 AMERICAN LITERATUBE. 

was passed in the Academy at Catskill, N. Y. After this she studied, under the instruction 
of private tutors, mathematics, history, and philosophy. 

In her twentieth year she was married to Rev. A. R,. Baker, D. D., who was then a teacher 
in the Phillips Academy at Andover. Encouraged by her husband, she wrote and published 
early in her wedded life and during her residence in Medford, Mass., where he w;is settled 
in tlie ministry, three small volumes. The String of Pearls, Louise Merton, and Frank Uer- 
bert. Of the second of these the ijroof-reader in the office where it was printed, said: ''I 
cannot read the proofs of that book without finding myself frequently overcome by the 
power of my emotions ; and I am obliged ever and anon to ?-eread several pages, because I 
become so interested in the story that I forget to make the proper correction of typograjihi- 
cal errors." These books were so favorably received by the public that their author resolved 
to prepare others ; but for several years her duties as a clergyman's wife and as the mother 
of five sons, now settled in professional life or engaged in preparation for it, prevented her 
from realizing her purpose and from writing, except occasional articles lor newspapers, 
magazines, and reviews. 

In 1S50, she removed to the city of Lynn, Mass., where her husband was pastor of the 
Central Church. There she assisted him several years in editing two monthly journals: 
The Mother's Assistant, and The Happy Home, which were extensively circulated. Many 
of her contributions to these periodicals have subsequently been transferred to her volumes. 
From that period she wrote and published constantly, her works being issued by different 
firms in Boston and New York. 

In 1855, she published under her name of Mrs. Madeline Leslie, The Courtesies of Wedded 
Life. About the same time ajipeai-ed anonymously another large 12mo, entitled Cora and 
the Doctor, which was ascribed to many persons of eminence in the republic of letters. In 
plot and literary finish, in power and pathos, this is considered one of her happiest efforts, 
and called forth most flattering notices and reviews from Washington Irving and other dis- 
tinguitihed critics. The name of its autlior was repeatedly called for, and at length the call 
was answered by its issue with other volumes from her pen in a series entitled. Home Life. 

Many of her books have been republished in England and other countries. Few, if any 
of them, have been more popular and useful than Tim the Scissors-Grinder, now published 
in what is called the Tim Series. This volume first appeared a.s a serial in the Loston 
Recorder. Long before its completion in that paper numerous applications were received 
from different houses for the right to publish it in a book. From all parts of the country 
the most delightful testimonials have been received of its excellence auA usefulness in the 
conversion and sanctification of very many. 

Mrs. Leslie's books are written in good English, and are remarkably free from cant 
phrases and barbarisms, from eccentricities and extravagance, from bad grammar and 
rhetorical faults, which depress the standard of literature and corrupt public taste. Her 
style is simple, chaste, often elegant; her plan natural and progressive; her characters well 
drawn and sustained; many of her scenes, picturesque and impressive ; and the moral tone 
and influence of her writings, as several of her reviewers have said, "above all praise." 
They have compared her books, for literary execution, moral aim, and influence, with those 
of Hannah More, Mrs. Sherwood, and Charlotte Elizabeth. They inculcate high moral and 
religious sentiments, but are free from the dialectics of the schools, and Irom all sectarian- 
ism ; and therefore they are found in the libraries of all Christian denominations. 

Her books, classified according to the age of the persons for whom they were written, have 
been as follows: For adults. Home Life, 4 vols.; Silver Lake Series, 3 v<ds. ; Golden Spring 
Series, 3 vols. ; The Tim Series, 3 vols. ; Leslie Stories, 5 vols. ; Erookside Series, 4 vols. ; Mis- 
cellaneous Sunday-School Books, 8 vols. For young persons, The Dermott Family, or Illus- 
trations of the Sliorter Catechism, 5 vols.; Play and Study Series, 4 vols. ; Little Agnes' 
Library, 4 vols. ; The Good Hope Scries, 4 voli. ; Woodbine Scries, 4 vols. For children and 
youth, George's Menagerie, 6 vols. ; Minnie and her Prts, G vols. ; Robin's Nest, G vols. ; Little 
Frankic Stories, 6 vols. : Rosy Dawn, 6 vols. ; Woodlawn, C vols. ; Corwin's Nest Series, 6 



FROM 1850 TO THE PliESEXT TIME. 515 

vols.; Aunt Iiu;tiL''s Library, 12 vols. ; Sunshine Series, 6 vols. ; Tlie Pearl Series, 12 vols. ; 
The Happy Home Stories, 12 vols.; Sparkling Gems, 12 vols., and sundry Miscellaneous Sun- 
day-School BoolvS, making in all, at this date, May, 1S72, one hundred and si.\ty vols. Some 
of these books are published under her real name, others with her initials, or with Aunt Ilat- 
tie, a few with some other or without any name of llieir author, but u:o.st of them under the 
name of '"Mrs. Madeline Leslie." 

Rev. a. R. Baker, D.D., husband of the preceding, was born in Franklin, Mass., August 
30, 1S05. lie was tlie son of Captain David and Mrs. Jemima Richardson Baker. He gradu- 
ated from Amherst College, in ISoO ; taught the High School in Medway one year, from 
which he was called to be Principal of the Dorchester Academy; graduated from Andover 
Theological Seminary, September, 1*^30 ; married Harriettc Newell Woods, daughter of Rev. 
Dr. Leonard and Mrs. Abby ^Vhoeler Woods of Andover, October 1, 1835 ; was teacher of the 
English department of Phillips Academy for two years. There he published The School His- 
tory of the United States, which had an extensive sale, and was one of the firet books in 
that department associating chronology and geography with history. A few years later 
he was ordained pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Medford, Mass., where 
he resided thirteen years. During his ministry in Medford, he prepared and published 
two Question Books for Bible classes, youth, and infant classes, on tlie AVestminster Shorter 
Catechism. These books, called The Catechism Tested by the Bible, were received with 
great favor. Flattering notices, reviews, and letters were published, especially from the 
South and West, also from England and Scotland. More than a hundred thousand copies 
were published the first 3'ear. They have been translated into several languages — 
French, Arabic, Armeno-Turkish, and into the language of the Sandwich Islands, where by 
order of the government they were studied as a text-book in the day-schools. These volumes 
are still in use, and are sold extensively in connection with a childs exposition of the an- 
swers in the Catechism, called the Dermott Family, in 5 vols., prepared by Mrs. Baker under 
the direction of Dr. Baker. 

In 1849 he was called to Lynn, and the next year was settled there as pastor of the Cen- 
tral Church. There, in connection with his ministerial duties, he edited and wrote a con- 
siderable part of six volumes of The Mother's Assistant and of The Happy Home, two month- 
lies devoted to the domestic relations, duties, and enjoyments of Christian families. He 
was subsequently settled in Wellesley, Mass., and again in South Boston. 

But the great work of his later years has been an Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. 
Connected with this E.xposition is a treatise on Prayer, and another on the traits of Chris- 
tian character. These volumes are now ready for the press, and will shortly be given to the 
public. Dr. Baker has also published numerous Sunday-School books ; hivs edited and en- 
larged an American edition of Cobbins Child's Commentary, in 4 vols.; has edited all the 
works of his wife, and assisted in carrying through the press the works of his father-in-law, 
Rev. Leonard Woods, D. D., of Andover. 

Mrs. Vienna G. Ramsay, 1817 , has published a large numl>er of tales and sketches. 

She was born in North Berwick, Me., where her parents, Thaddeus and Susan Morrell, still 
reside. She had from childhood a passion for re.iding. The village library supplied such 
books a.s Roliin's Ancient History, Josephus, Gibbon, and other works equally voluminous 
and solid; and many of these she read before she was twelve years old. As she grew 
towards womanhood her love of learning increased. Her advantages for education were 
poor, but she possessetl the will which makes the acquisition of learning i)08sible under 
almost all circumstaiucs. The Latin and French grammars were learned amid the daily 
toils in which her liamls were necessarily engaged, and while others slept, the pixiblcms of 
Geometry were solved by the light of the kitchen fire. 

In 1840 she was married to Rev. (;. P. R.inisay. whose life-work she has cheerfully shared. 
Like many other clcigymcu, his work has btou in fields widely scattorod. Seven years 



516 AMERICAN LITEHATUKE. 

■were spent in Epsom, N. H., three in Lawrence, Mass. One year, while failing health com- 
pelled him to rest, she taught in Hillsdale College, Mich. 

The last fifteen .years thej have resided in the State of New York. 

At the age of eighteen she began to write for the press, and from that time, though her 
circumstances have not been favorable to literary labor, she has been a pretty constant 
contributor. 

Mrs. Ramsay has written for a large number of mngazines and periodicals ; also the follow- 
ing books : Facts on Missions ; Evenings with the Children; A Legend of the White Uills, 
and other Poems. 

Mes. Mart Harrison Setmofr, , a native of New York, and a resident at present 

of Pawtucket, Pi.. I., has written the following Sunday-School books : Mollies Christmas 
Stocking: Posy Tinton's Picnic; Ned, Nellie, and Amy; also, a devotional manual, for a 
month, called Sunshine and Starlight. Mrs. Seymour is a daughter of the late Rev. 
Abraham Browne, and the wife of the Rev. Storrs 0. Seymour, of Pawtucket. 

Mrs. Sarah T. Martyn. 

Mrs. Sarah T. Martyn, 1805 , has written a number of fictions 

of a semi- historical character, illustrating important events and personages 
in church historv, and particularly that part of it connected with the Re- 
formation. She seems to have made this portion of history a special study, 
and her writings show more than usual ability in this species of compo- 
sition. 

Mrs. Martyn was born in Hopkinton, N. H., daughter of Rev. Ethan Smith. Her educa- 
tion was conducted mostlj' under the eye of her father, who was a man of much culture and 
ripe scholarship. She w^as married in 1841 to the Rev. J. H. Martyn, a clergyman of New 
York city, where she resided for twenty-five years. While there she was the editor of a 
popular magazine called The Ladies' Wreath, a charge which she relinquished when Mr. 
JIartyn was called to become the pastor of a church in Waukesha, Wis. 

Upon her return to New York, she commenced writing for the American Tract Society, 
and during the past few years they have published more than twenty of her works, among 
which are The Women of the Bible, Life and Times of William Tyndale. Times of Knox and 
Queen Mary Stuart, etc. She has been at times a contributor to most of the leading maga- 
zines of the country. She is now engaged in writing another book called Hill-Side Cottage, 
or Passages in the Life of Chloo Lankton. Since her husband's death, whicii occurred in 
1868. she has resided with her son, Rev. Wm. Carlos Martyn. The following is a list of her 
■works: Jesiis in Bethany; Our Tillage in War Time; Allan Cameron; Evelyn Percival ; 
Tiverton Rectory; EfBe Morrison ; Huguenots of Prance; Sibyl Grey; The Times of Knox 
and Queen Mary Stuart ; The Life of William Tyndale ; Lady Alice Lisle ; Phil Kennedy ; 
Nettie and her Sister; Winnie and her Grandfether ; Daughters of the Cross; The Crescent 
and the Cross; Wilford Parsonage; Margaret of Navarre; Women of the Bible; Dora's 
Mistake. 

Rr.v. William Caklos Martyn, 1841 , son of the preceding, was born in New York city. 

He titted for Yale College, but on account of weakness of the eyes, did not comjjlete the 
course. He entered New York University Law School, and graduated in I860. While in the 
Law School he was assistant editor of the New York Illustrated News, and then of Miles 
O'Ri'illy's Citizen. After leaving the law school he commenced writing an important series 
of biographical and historical books, published by the Americ;in Tract Society, viz. : Life and 
Times of Milton; Life and Times of Luther; The English Puritons; The Huguenots; and 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 517 

The Dutch Reformation. This labor covered several years, and appears to have been per- 
formed with thorougliness and care. 

Having completed the above series, he Wiis led to enter the Union Theological Seminary, 
with a view to the ministry, and was graduated from that institution in 1869. He at once 
accci)tou a call to the Pilgrim Congregational church in St. Louis, Mo. He labored there 
with marked success until September, 1871, when he accepted a call to the North Congrega- 
tional Church, Portsmouth, N. 11., where he now lives. 

Mr. Martyu writes with remarkable ability, and he has the reputation of being an elo- 
quent preacher. lie was married in 18C6, to Miss Mercedita Ferrer, daughter of Don Fermin 
Ferrer, former President of the Nicaraguau Republic. 



Mrs. Sadlier. 

Mrs. James Sadlier, 1820 , of New York, has written a large num- 
ber of attractive Sunday-scliool books, suited to the use of Catholic Sunday- 
schools, and has done in this way effective service to the church of her 
affections. She is also a frequent contributor to the Catholic journals, and 
one of the editors of the New York Tablet. 

Mrs. Sadlier, whose maiden name was Madden, was born in Cootehill, County Cavan, Ire- 
land. Her father, a respectable trader, having died in 1844, and her mother some years 
earlier. Miss Madden emigrated to America with a young brother, in August of that year. 
In November, 1846, she became the wife of James Sadlier, the junior partner of the well- 
known Catholic publishing house of D. & J. Sadlier & Co., of New York. 

Previously to her marriage Mrs. Sadlier had contributed to La Belle Assemblue, a London 
magazine, edited by Mrs. Cornwell Baron Wilson, and the Literary Garland, published in 
Montreal, Canada. Immediately after her marriage she entered upon that career as an author 
and translator, which has made her known to the Catholic community on both sides of the 
Atlantic. 

The following is a list of her principal original works : Alice Riordan, or The Blind Man's 
Daughter; Blakes and Flanagans, a Tale of Irish Life in America; Red Hand of Ulster, or the 
Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill ; Willie Burke, or the Irish Orphan in America ; New Lights, or Life 
in Galway ; The Confederate Chieftains, a Tale of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1641 ; Elinor 
Preston, or Scenes at Home and Abroad; Bessy Conway, or The Irish Girl in America ; The 
Confessions of an Apostate, or Scenes from a Troubled Life; Con ORegan, or Scenes from 
Emigrant Life ; Father Slieehy and Otlier Tales; The Old House by the Boyne; Aunt H(m- 
or's Keepsake ; Old and New, or Taste versus Fashion ; The Hermit of the Rock ; Tlie Heiress 
of Kilorgan, or Evenings with the Old Oeraldines; McCarthy More; Maureen Dhu, A Tale 
of the Cla^ldagh, at Galway; A Catechism of Sacred History. 

Mrs. Sadlier has translated from the French: Orsini's Life of the Blessed Virgin ; De Sig- 
ney's Life of Christ; Life of Christ (for childhood); Orphan of Moscow; Castle of Rous- 
sillon ; Duty of a Christian; Collot's Doctrinal and Scriptural Catechi.sm; The Knout,aTale 
of Poland ; Cardinal Lambruschini on the Immaculate Conception, with a History of the Doc- 
trine ; The Year of Mary; The Lost Son, An Episode of the French Revolution; Spanish 
Cavaliers, A Tale of the Moorish Wars in Spain ; The Bohemians ; The Great Day, Souvenir 
of First Communion ; and the following small tales : The Blighted Flower ; Ten Stories ; Va- 
leria, or The First Christians ; The Kxile of Tadmor ; Tales and Stories from Viscomte Walsh ; 
The Vendetta; Wilhelm, or Cliristian Forgiveness ; Benjamin; The Pope's Niece ; Idleness, 
or The Double Lesson. 

Mrs. Sadlier has been, from its establishment in 1867, one of the editors of the Now York 
Tablet. 

44 



518 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Miss C. F. Cnx", , of Cambridge, Mass., has for a long time contributed to peri- 
odical literature, and lias published several volumes of tales for the young. Miss Orne was 
born in Cambridge, and has always lived there. She has been for the last fifteen years libra- 
rian of the Dana Library, of that city. The account which Miss Orne gives of her earliest 
studies is in itself a curious piece of history : 

" 1 do not remember when I learned to read or spell. I am told that I read the Primer 
at eighteen months, and that I crept up-stairs when my elder brother and sisters were at 
their studies, and learned by listening to their teacher. I distinctly remember running 
away when I was a few months older to a school kept by a Miss Mason, and creeping under 
a low bench, for fear the large girls (who were aged four or five) would tread on me, as they 
jumped about at recess. As winter came on, that school was too distant, and I was unwill- 
ingly kept at home. 

" However, the town school was not far, but children under five were not admitted. I 
made a bold effort one cold day, and bareheaded, ran away again to school. On arriving I 
found the door closed and locked. I knocked, but my little cold hand made'small impres- 
sion. I got some stones and knocked with them, but no one came. I heard the inside door 
open, and with trembling eagerness repeated as loudly as I could, the Golden Rule, as the 
spelling-book gave it, in four lines of verse. Oh joy! the key turned in the lock, the door 
opened, the master looked out, and said, ' What do you want, little girl? ' 

*' I shook my brown curls over my eyes, and said timidly, ' I can read.' 

*' He invited me in, and I followed him to a seat near his desk, very proud and vc?i*y bashful." 

Miss Orne has written for the Knickerbocker, Godey's Lady's Book, Graham's Magazine, 
Boston Olive Branch, Odd Fellow, The True Flag, Worcester Spy, and various other news- 
papers and magazines, among them The B,ound Table, of New York. She has published two 
small books of stories for children: A Day in the Woodlands, and Lucy's Party and other 
Tales. 

JMiss Orne's productions have often been confounded with those of Mrs. Caroline Orne. 

Mrs. Caroline Orne, , began nearly forty years ago writing tales and sketches 

for the literary magazines. She has at different times written for more than twenty maga- 
zines and papers, and is the author of more than two hundred and fifty tales. 

Mrs. Orne was born in Georgetown, Mass. Her maiden name is Chaplin, and she is a 
niece of the late Jeremiah Chaplin, D. D., President of Waterville College. She taught 
school for a time in Salem, Mass. After her marriage, she resided at Wolfsboro', N. H. 
Since her husband's death she has lived at Bellingham, Mass. 

Lucy Ellen Guernsey. 

Miss Lucy Ellen Guernsey, , of Eochester, N. Y., has 

made some very valuable contributions to Sunday-school literature. The 
book of hers which made the most immediate and the strongest impression 
was Irish Amy. 

Miss Guernsey was born at Pittsford, near Rochester, daughter of James N. Guernsey, 
and was educated chiefly at home. After her father's death the family removed to Roches- 
ter, where she has resided ever since. The following is a list of her books: Irish Amy; 
Alice and Bessie; Ready Work for Willing Hands; Jenny and the Birds; Jenny and the 
Insects; Wild and Tame; The Tattler; Twin Roses ; Opposite Neighbors; Kitty Maynard ; 
Nelly, or tlie Best Inheritance ; Blue Socks ; Mabel, or the Bitter Root ; Cousin Deborah's 
Story ; The Little Beggar Boy ; Ethel's Trial ; The Faircliilds ; The Dark Night ; Only in 
Fun; Charley, or the Bad Habit; Lol la, or Greediness; Kitty's Christmas Tree; Dolly, or 
the Unsafe Guide; Who shall be Captain ? The Orphan Nieces; Tabby's Travels; Upward 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 519 

and Onward ; Winifrid. or After Many Paj-s ; Christmas at Cedar Ilill ; The School Oirrg 
Treasure; The Child's Treasure; The Sign of the Cross; Sophie Kennedy; Christmas Even- 
ings ; The Longham Revels ; Straiglitforward. 

Miss Clara G. Guernsey, , a sister »f the preceding, has written books simi- 
lar in kind to tlioseof Lucy tlk'u: Netty's Acorn Frames; The SilverCup; Cliristma.s Greens ; 
Lucy and her Friends ; The Trying Child ; Tlie Young Heiress ; Pewese Pussy ; The Leighton 
Chihlien ; Out of the Orphan Asylum ; Snarly and Charly ; Out in the Storm ; The Drilling 
Boat; Scrub Hollow Sunday School ; The Silver Rifle; Alice Fenton ; The Merman and the 
Figure Head ; The Ice Kalt; The New Loy ; Oliver's Prisoner; Friends in Need ; The Spirit 
in Prison. 

Miss Kate Hamilton, , of Eloomington, HI., has written a goodly number of 

Sunday-School story-books. Miss Hamilton was born in Schenectady, N. Y., resided for a 
short time in New Jersey, and afterward in Massachusetts, but was educated cliiefly at 
Steubenviile, 0. The loHowing is a list of her volumes : Chinks of Clannyford ; GreyclilTe; 
13iave Heart; Blue Umbrella; Oid Drown House; The Shadow of the Rock ; NorahNeil; 
Nina Grey ; and Frederick Gordon. Aside from these, she has contributed to various papers 
and magazines : Harpers B.izur; the Advance, of Chicago; Ladies' Repository, of Ciu- 
cinniiti, etc. 

Many of her publications have appeared under the name of Fleeta. 

Mrs. A. K. Dunning, — ^' Nellie Grahame.'* 

Mrs. Annie K. Dunning, , ha.s contributed more than fifty 

volumes to Sunday-School literature, many of them among the best to be 
found in that class of ■works. Most of her books have been written under 
the name of "Nellie Grahame." 

Mrs. Dunning is the daughter of the late Hon. Hiram Kotchum of New York, and grand- 
d.iughter of the lato Rov. Dr. Dow of Thompson, Conn. She was b.>rn in the city of New 
York, and received her education in several select schools in her native city. For a number 
of yeiirs she was a pupil of the Rev. John S. C. Abbott. In the cultivation of her literary 
tastes, and for skill and ease in the use of her intellectual powers, as well as for careful 
training in matt -rs of still higher moment, she is largely indebted to evening exercis'.s, 
conversations, and discussions which she enjoyed with her distinguished father, during all 
the years she r niained under his roof. 

At the age of twelve years ^he was hopefully converted to Christ, tinder the ministry of the 
Rpv Dr. Tyng, bnt did not make a public profession of religion till some ye;irs later. A few 
years afti'r uniting with the church, she was united in marriage to the Bev. A. Dunning, 
successor to iK^r grandfather, Dr. Dow, pastor of the Congregational Church in Thompson, 
Conn. 

From childhood Mrs. Dunning liad a decided taste for literary composition, but it was not 
till some time after her removal to her country home that her thoughts were first turned 
to authorship; and then, primarily, in the hope of supplementing somewhat her husbunds 
inadequate salary. 

Her first literary venture, Clementina's Mirror, was i)uMisbed in 18.''i9. Encouraged by 
the success of this exjieriment, she soon made a sccon*! attempt. The telescope. Very soon 
Mrs. D. became a writer for the Presliyterian lioard of Publication, by which hou.se most of 
her subsequent volumes have been brought out. perhaps fifty in number. In adilitioii to 
these, the names of which are to l)e found on their catalogue, she has written for other 
houses. The First (Jia.ss of Wine, and Blind Je.ssie: Mi.>itak(n ; Only a Penny; Grace Maii.s- 
field's Experiment; Mr. Wallinglbrd's Mistake; CoutiuUicliouB aud Triflca : Mary Grey's 
Perplexities; Little Robie ; aud Our Fathor. 



520 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Mrs. Dunning has not written very much for periodicals, although she was a regular 
contributor to Mrs. H. W. Beecher's Mother's Magazine until its suspension; and has been 
an occasional contributor to the American Messenger, The Sunday-School Times, The Sab- 
bath-School Visitor, and Mrs. Clarke's Mothers Journal, 

Miss Catherine M. Trowbridge, 1818 , was born in South Mansfield, Conn., where 

she still resides. The love of books and of literary pursuits seems to have been an inherit- 
ance from her maternal grandfather. But another inheritance was also hers, that of a frail 
constitution, which has much limited her literary efforts. Owing to this and to some other 
causes, all the education she received was obtained in her native town, with the exception 
of a few months spent at Norwich, Conn. She was favored in coming under the instruction 
of excellent teachers both at Norwich and in her native town. Her publications, all of a 
juvenile character, are the following: Dick and his Friend Fidus; Charles Norwood; 
George Morton and his Sister ; Frank and Rufus ; The Two Councils ; Jennie's Bible Terses ; 
The Two Friends; Howard Ashley; Nettie Wallace; The Gold Dollar; How to Conquer ; 
The Mapleville Boys ; Oakville Dove's Nest; Emma Marble and her Cousin ; Agnes Wilbur; 
Emma Alston; Edward Clifford; Henry Willard ; Cloverglen; Painstaking; Edward and 
Mary; Fireside Lessons ; Wayside Lessons ; The Best Friend; Christian Heroism; The In- 
quirer ; The Skater ; Bessie's Visit. 

Mart H.vllowat, , is a native and resident of Philadelphia. She has written the 

following juvenile books : Emma Herbert, or Be Ye Perfect; Two Terms at Olney ; Annie's 
Influence ; Burt Ashley's Lessons ; Oriel ; Cross Roads. 

Harriet B. McKeever. 

Miss Harriet B. McKeever, 1807 , of Philadelphia, has written 

a large number of Sunday-school story-books. Some of these possess more 
than usual merit. 

Miss McKeever was born in the city of Philadelphia, and has lived there all her life. She 
was engaged for thirty-six years in the business of teaching in different parts of the city. 
She has been for more than forty years a Sunday-school teacher. Six clergymen have passed 
into the ministry, who received their first religious impressions in the infant school of St. 
Andrew's Church, of which she had the charge for more than thirty years. One female mis- 
sionary went out from her day-school. 

Necessity led her quite late in life to enter upon the business of authorship. Her books 
have nearly all been written in the last thirteen years, while engaged in teaching. 

The following are her principal books : Simshine, or Kate Vinton ; Woodchflf; Woodcliff 
Children; Edith's Ministry; Nothing but Leaves; Rupert Lawrence; Heavenward — Earth- 
ward ; Diamond Cross Series ; The Old Chateau, a prize story; Jesus on Earth, a toy-book ; Lit tie 
Red Cloak, a toy-book ; Birth-day Series ; Flounced Robe; Milly's Taper ; Will Collins ; Fred- 
erick Latimer; Westbrook Parsonage ; Children with the Poets ; Silver Threads ; Maude and 
Miriam, or the Fair Crusader; Lucy's Two Lives; Aunt Harriet's Tales; Good-Bye Stories; 
The Master's Call; Memoir of Sarah E. Doughty ; Little Edward ; Twilight Musings; The 
Pigeons' Wedding; Little Mary and the Fairy, a toy -book ; Nursery Treasury, a toy-book. 

Mrs. Ada C. Chaplin, 1842 , was born in Falmouth, Mass, and was married to Rev. A. 

J. Chaplin, in 1860. She has lived iu various parts of New Jei-sey. Her present residence is 
Conway, Mass. She has written the following books: A Mind of My Own ; Little Nobody; 
Two Half Dollars; Widow Maynard's Cow; Eight Years Old ; Annie Lincoln's Lesson; Little 
Watchman; Edith's Two Account Books; Grace Hailaud ; Happy New Year; Chi'ist's 
Cadets; Charity Hmlburt. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 621 

Mrs. Jane D. C. Chaplin, , was l)orn in Scotland, and came to America before her 

remembrance, in 1821, with her father, Rev. Duncan Dunbar, who was long a prominent 
Baptist minister of New York city. She was educated in New York, and married in 1841 to 
Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin. She has since then resided in Bangor, Me., in Dedham, and New- 
ton, Mass., and other places in New England. She has c«mtributed for the last twenty years 
to religious periodicals, mainly the Baptist. The following are her principal volumes, all 
Sunday-school story-books : The Convent and Manse; The Transplanted Shamrock ; Black and 
■\Vhite; Kitty Foote ; Morning Gloom ; The Odd Gentleman and Ilis Friends; Gems of the 
Bog; Out of the Wilderness; Donald McBride's Lassie; Wee Maggie Forsythe. 

Mrs. Anna Bache, , of Philadelphia, has written several books of an entertaining 

character, which have been well received, and most of them have gone through several edi- 
tions : The Fire-Screen, or Domestic Sketches ; Legends from Fairy Land ; The Sibyl's 
Cave, a parlor toy-book, or predictions; The Clara Books, namely. Little Clara, Clara's 
Amusements, and Stories for Little Clara. Mrs. Bache is the daughter of Capt. John Law- 
son, of Old Chester, England, by his second wife, Rachel Buchanan, of New Castle, Del. 



Mrs. Caroline E. Davis. 

Mrs. Caroline E. Davis, 1831 , has written a goodly number of 

excellent story-books for Sunday-school libraries. 

Mrs. Davis's maiden name was Kelly, and under that name she first gained a reputation. 
She was born at Northwood, N. IL Her parents removed to Exeter, N. 11., when she was 
about six months old. and that was her home until her marriage in 1867. She is now living 
in Andover, Mass. The following is a list of her books: Grace Hale; Charley Kempsey's 
Farm ; Our Father's House ; Charity Barnes, or the Cobbler's Daughter ; Alice Haven ; Car- 
rie Allison, or in the Vineyard ; Daisy Deane; Getty Harding's Mission ; Johnny's Captain ; 
Papa's Little Soldiers; Matty Frost; Mary's Patience Bank; Little Apple-Blossom; The 
Child's Bible Stories, 4 vols. ; Little Sermon Talks; The Gold Bracelets; The Home Vine- 
yard; Andy Hall, the Mission Scholar in the Army; Arthur Merton ; A Christmas Story; 
Bernice, the Farmer's Daughter; Yachtville Boys; Friday Lowe; Little Conqueror Series, 
4 vols. ; Little Maidie, 3 vols.: No Cross, No Crown ; Ruth Cheney ; The Old Barracks ; The 
Upward Path; Baby's Christmas; John Brett's Household; Into the Highways; Penny 
Rust's Christmas; Two Books; Faithful in Lea.st. 

Mrs. Davis spent seven years of her life as a teacher in a Mission School, and much of the 
excellence of her books is due to her experience in that work. 

Mrs. Margaret Hosmer, 1830 , is a native of Philadelphia, and was educated in the 

public scliools of that city. She went to California in 1852, and in several of her books has 
pictured in vivid colors the condition of the Chinese population there, and the efforts made 
for their conversion to Christianity. She has written some novels, but her books have been 
mostly of the kind known as Sunday-school story-hooks. The following are the chief: The 
Chinese Boy; Cherry the Missionary ; Chy Loo and his Teacher; Grandma Merritt's Stories; 
A Year in Sunday-School; The Voyage of the White Falcon; A Cbinanian in California; 
The Lost Father; A Story of a Black Court; Rich and Poor; The Little Captives; Serving 
The Orphans; and the Rosie Series. 

The following are her novels : The Morrisons ; Ten Years of a Life Time ; Blanche Gilroy, 

Mrs. Helen S. Conant, 1839 , was bom at Methiien, Mass., in 1839. She is the wife 

of Samuel S. Conant, formerly Managing Editor of the New York Times, and at present editor 
of Harper's Weekly. After her marriage, she remained three years in Europe completing 
44* 



522 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

her studies. She is the author of Butterfly Hunters, and of numerous translations from 
the French, Germ;in, and Spanish, and of various magazine articles. She is a regular con- 
tributor to the Aldine, New York, and to some other journals, including Harper's periodical 
publications. 

Mrs. M. L. Peebles, , under the tiame of " Lynde Palmer," has written seme 

admirable stories, which have had a large sale, and are among the best of their kind. Mrs. 
Peeble-! is a native and a resident of Lansingburgh, N. Y. She was married in 18C2 to Mr. 
A. A. Peebles, of the same place. The following is a list of her publications : The Little 
^Captain; Helps over Hard Places, 2 vols.; The Good Fight; The Honorable Club. The 
Magnet Series, comprising 4 vols.; Drifting and Steering; One Day's Weaving; Archie's 
Shadow; John — Jack. 

Mrs. Mary J. Hildeburn, , wife of William L. Hildeburn, a retired merchant of 

Philadelphia, has written a large number of Sunday-School story-books. The following are 
the chief: Day Dreams ; Henry Morris ; The Barclays ; Clara Douglass ; Money or the Ains- 
worths; Bessie Lane's Mistake; Flora Morris' Choice ; The Cra^^thorues of Stony Hollow; 
and Gatfney's Tavern. 

The maiden name of Mrs. Hildeburn was Mary J. Reed. She is a native of Philadelphia, 
and has always lived there. She was at one time a teacher in the public schools. 

Mrs. Sarah A. Myers, 1802 , of Carlisle, Pa., has contributed largely to Sunday- 
School literature. The following is a list of her writings : Model Merchant; Impatient Ellen 
and other tales ; Pioneers of Fuegia; Poor Nicholas ; Gulf Stream ; Aunt Carrie's Budgets ; 
Railroad Boy ; Young Recruit ; Margaret Ashton, or Work and Win ; Margaret, Gordon, or 
Can I Forgive? The Silk Weaver of Lyons; Little Barbara or Path of the Just; Alma's 
Grove ; History of the Druids ; Hans the Collier Boy; Greek Cadets ; Dick Holden, or a Bi-ave 
Heart ; The Proud Princess ; The Black Silk Apron ; Fisher Boy, a Huguenot story ; The Little 
Gossip ; Uncle Frank, or The Miser's Lesson. Mrs. Myers's maiden name was Irwin. She 
belongs to a Scotch Covenanting family. She was bora in Wilmington, Del., but has lived 
nearly always in Pennsylvania. Her father had an iron-foundry and became wealthy. Her 
mother dying, Sarah, not yet four years old, was sent for education and training to Madame 
de St. Hilaire, a granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards and sister of Mrs. John Quincy Adams. 
With Madame do St. Uilairc, the child grew up to be a highly accomplished woman. In 1825, 
she was married. to Dr. Myers, a jjractising physician. On his death, she found herself, at the 
age of thirty-three, "utterly alone in the world, widowed, childless, friendless, and poor." 
In this emergency she went in 1845 to Philadelphia, where she had two steadfast friends, 
Dr. Durbin and Dr. Bethune, and sought occupation as a teacher of music and painting. She 
succeeded in this, and through Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Naal she gained siccess for her writings to 
the columns of the Lady's Book and Ncal's Gazette. - Since 1851 she has occupied herself 
mainly with writing Sunday-School books. She resides at Carlisle, Pa. 

Mrs. M.attie Dyer Britts, 1841 , the daughter of Rev. Sidney Dyer, was born in the 

city of New York. When yet a child she removed with her parents to the West. Her edu- 
cation was mainly received in the public schools of Indianapolis, Ind , finishing in the High- 
School and Dr. McClain's Female Seminary, then a popular institution in that city. Soon 
after leaving the schools, she became a teacher in the Ladoga Female Seminary, at LadoLr;i, 
Ind.. where she married and still resides. 

AVhile yet a pupil in the High-School, she commenced her literary career. One of these 
early efforts found its way into the " Editor's Table " of Harper's Magazine, and is still met 
with in the corners of newspapers, under the title of Died Yesterday. She is a stated con- 
tributor to the Saturday Journal, and several other literary and religious periodicals, and 
has given two volumes to the press of the Bible and Publication Society, Edward Lee, a 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 523 

Story for Eoj's, and Denny's Christmas Present. One of her poetical compositions, Nothing 
To Do, has been extensively copied. 

Two sisters, Julia A. M athews, and Joann.\^ II. Mathews, daughters of the late James M. 
Mathews, D. D., Chancellor of tlie University of the City of New York, have written a num- 
ber of capital story-books for the young. Those by Julia Maliiews are: Little Katy and 
Jolly Jim ; Jolly and Katy in the Country ; Nellie's Stumbling-Block ; Susy's Sacrifice ; How 
Jennie Found her Lord; Drayton Hall Series, 6 vols.; Golden Ladder Series, 6 vols.; Grand- 
father's Faith. The books by Joanna Mathews are : The Bessie Books, 6 vols. ; The Flowerets ; 
The Sunbeams. It would be difficult to find in the whole range of Sunday-School literature 
better books than those by the Misses Mathews. 

Miss Finley, — ^^ Martha Farquharson." 

Mautha Finley, , of Philadelphia, under the name mostly 

of " Martha Farquharson," has published a large number of Sunday-School 
books, but has not confined herself to works of that kind. Some of her 
later and larger volumes, such as Wanted a Pedigree, are novels and so 
intended. 

Miss Finley is the third daughter of Dr. James B. Finley, eldest son of Gen. Samuel Finley, 
one of the earlier settlers of Chillicothe, 0. She was born in Chillicothe, but a year after- 
wards her father removed to Circleville, and when she was about eight years of age. to South 
Bend, lud. There she grew up to womanhood. She left Indiana soon after reaching woman- 
hood, resided for a short time in New York city, and since then has made Philadelphia her 
home. 

The following is a list of her works: Jennie White, small 18mo; Mabita; Willie and Hia 
Days, 32mo; Ella Clinton ; Aunt Ruth; Marion Ilarvie ; Annandale; Clouds and Sunshine; 
Cares and Comforts ; Myrie's Work ; Lame Letty ; Try ; Nursery Tales ; Willie Elton ; Little 
Joe Carter; Robert and Daisy; A Week in Liilie's Life; Eva Morton; Hugo and Franz; 
Brookside Farmhouse ; A Man's Fault ; The Shannons ; Rufus The Onready ; Do Good Library, 
9 vols ; Little Books for Little Readers, G vols. ; The Open Books, 6 vols. ; Pewits Nest Series, 
12 vols. ; Elsie Dinsmore; Holidays at Roselands. 

Besides the foregoing, which are Sunday-School books, though not all juvenile, Miss Finley 
has written the following novels: Casilla, or Children of the Valleys; Old-Fashioned Boy; 
Lilian ; Wanted a Pedigree. 

Mrs. Jenny Marsh Parker, , a native of Milan, N. Y., and a resident of Rochea- 

ter, has written a number of juvenile story-books : Around the Manger ; The Light of the 
World ; Seeds for the Spring Time; The Soldier of the Cross ; Frank Earnest; What a Cliild 
Should Know; The Boy Missionary; Losing the Way; The Story of a Story-Book; Dick 
Watley; Andy, the Story of a Troublesome Boy. 

Mrs. Mart II. (Greene) Pike, 1827 , is a native of Ea-^tport, Me. She has written 

several popular stories: Ida May, a Story of Things Actual and Possible ; Caste, a Story of 
Republican Equality; Agnes; Bond and Free; Entanglements; Cumworth House; My Son's 
Wife, etc. 

Miss Margaret M. Robertson, , daughter of a Scotch clergyman, and a resident 

in Montreal, Canada, has published in the United States several excellent Sunday-School 
books : Cliristie, or the Way Home; Shonac's Work at Home; Story of Little Gabriel ; Tho 
Orphans of Glen Eldeu ; Stephen Grattau'a Faith ; My Friend'a Friend ; The Little Ilouae ia 
the Hollow. 



524 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

JxTLlA C. Thompson, , was born at Monroe, Orange County, N. T., where her 

father, the Rev. Jolin Jay Thompson, a Presbyterian minister, was settled at the time. Miss 
Tliompson, after attending various other schools, entered the Packer Collegiate Institute, 
Brooklyn, and was graduated in the class of 1859. She spent some time in teaching in Fer- 
nandina, Fla , but came north when the war broke out, and has been teaching since in 
Philadelpliia, in the Spring Garden Institute. Miss Thompson has but lately entered the 
career of authorship, but the three books already written give evidence of fine abilities, and 
promise of a large future harvest: Aspeni'ida; Life in Narrow Streets; and Frye's Year in 
India. 

Mrs. Frances J. B. Smith, 1826 , daughter of Rev. L. Burge, and a native of "Wickford, 

R. I., has written several juvenile books : Elm Tree Tales ; Fan Fan's Stories ; Nina, or Life's 
Caprices ; Missionary Kite ; What the Tree Taught ; Miriam's Reward ; and about a dozen 
others. 

Annie Maria Mitchell, 1847 , was born in Sandwich, Mass., was educated in Phila- 
delphia and at Tassar College. She taught two years among the freedmen in Tennessee. 
She commenced writing for publication in the spring of 1868. The first two publications 
were designed especially for use among the freed children of the South. She has been a suc- 
cessful authoress of religious juvenile books. The following is a list of her publications: 
Martha's Gift ; Freed Boy in Alabama ; Paul Kent ; Golden Primer ; Golden First Reader ; 
Crystals ; The Cash-Boy's Trust. 

Mrs. Harriet V. Cheney, , a native of Massachusetts, has written the following : 

The Sunday-School, or Tillage Sketches, the joint pi'oduction of Mrs. Cheney and her sister, 
Mrs. Gushing; A Peep at the Pilgrims; The Rivals of Arcadia; Sketches from the Life of 

Christ; Confessions of an Early Martyr. — Mrs. Cushing, , sister of Mrs. H. V. 

Cheney, is a resident of Montreal. She has written Esther, a Dramatic Poem, and several 

juvenile books. — Mrs. Hannah Foster, , the mother of Mrs. H. V. Cheney and 

Mrs. Cushing, is the author of The Coquette, or the History of Eliza Wharton, 

Annis Lee Wister, , daughter of Br. Wm. H. Furness of Philadelphia, and wife 

of Caspar Wister, M. D., has translated several charming volumes from the German, and 
contributed some original articles to Lippiucott's Magazine. Her translations have been: 
Seaside and Fireside Fancies; The Old Mam'selle's Secret ; Gold Elsie; The Countess Gisela; 
Only a Girl; The Enchanting and Enchanted. 

Mrs. Mart L. Clark, 1831 , was born in Fairfield, Me., daughter of Cyrus Latham. 

She removed to Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 1836, and to Lowell, Mass., in 1839. She was mar- 
ried in 1855 to Dr. David S. Clark, Lewiston, Me., and resides now in Derby, N. H. She has 
written the following Sunday-School books: The Sunbeam; Dialogues and Recitations; 
Birthday Present ; The Mayflower Series, 6 vols. ; Daisy's Mission ; White Mice Boy ; Kitty's 
Tableaux ; Bud and Blossom ; Blue Violet, etc. 

Mrs. M.art C. Weston, 1823 , was born in Albany, daughter of William North. She 

is the wife of the Rev. D. C. Weston, D.D., Rector of Cbrist Church, Stratford, Conn., to 
whom she was married in 1842. Her first work was The Calvary Catechism, for infant 
classes, which has had an unprecedented sale, — about C0,000 per annum, — and has been 
translated into the Russian, German, and Indian languages. Then followed her Catechism 
on the Doctrines and Usages of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Her other works are: 
Synopsis of the Bible, 2 vols.; Jewish Antiquities; Biography of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, 2 vols. ; Fundamental Truths and Doctrines of Scripture. 



FROM 18 50 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 525 

VIII. HISTORIANS. 

Prescott. 

William IIickling Prescott, LL. D., 1796-1850, stands unchallenged 
as a classical historian of the highest order. His chief works, the History 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, the History of Philip II., the Conquest of 
Mexico, and the Conquest of Peru, have obtained universal acceptance as 
models of historical composition. 

Mr. Prescott was a native of Salem, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, of the class of 1814. 
He was a grandson of the Colonel Prescott who was in command at Bunker Hill. 

Prescott's name is the most eminent in the list of American historians. He owes this dis- 
tinction not merely to the intrinsic worth of his writings, but to the rare and almost unex- 
ampled perseverance with which he produced them in the face of apparently insuperable 
difficulties. While in his junior year at Harvard he lost, by accident, the use of one eye 
altogether, and subsequently, by over-work, the free use of the other. Indeed, he was 
obliged for many years to read exclusively through the eyes of another, and in this way 
were accumulated nearly all the material and notes for his Ferdinand and Isabella. During 
the latter part of his life his eyesight improved so that he was able to read for himself a few 
hours a day. 

In 1837 appeared the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. So great was Pres- 
cott's modesty and sense of his deficiencies, that no little urging and persuasion were neces- 
sary on the part of his friends and his father to induce him to publish this result of so many 
years of toil. The success of the work put to shame all such apprehensions in the author's 
mind, and secured him a permanent place among the great historians of his country. 

In 1843, six years afterwards, appeared the Conquest of Mexico; in 1847, the Conquest 
of Peru; in 1856, his edition of Robertson's Charles V., containing, as new matter, the sup- 
plement on the cloister-lie of Charles V.; in 1855, the first two volumes of Philip II.; and 
in 185S, the third volume. 

Besides his larger works, Prescott was also the author of several pieces, which appeared 
chiefly in the North American Review, and which have been collected in one volume under 
the title of Biographical and Critical Miscellanies. 

In 1850 he visited Europe, travelling principally in England and Scotland. No one, since 
the days of Irving, has received so general and so spontaneous a welcome. It wiis an almost 
national ovation made to the man as well as to the historian. Those who wish to learn the 
details of Prescott's life and liis method of study and composition should read his Life by 
George Ticknor, one of the most interesting and faithful biographies in any language. 

As a man Prescott was eminently genial and companionable. Some of the most pleasing 
passages in his biography are those which give an account of his struggles with a disposi- 
tion to fritter away too much time in social amusement, and of his almost laughable expe- 
dients to insure diligence. Few men have had warmer friends and a serencr life. 

As an historian, Prescott stands in the foremost rank of narrators. He is surpassed by 
others in vigor of thought, and in philosophic acumen. It has been justly remarked of him 
that he does not always seize the direct connection between ofTect and cause. But no one 
has exceeded him in faithfulness and patience of investigation, and clearness and picturosque- 
ness of description, and especially in charity towards the blunders and bigotry of by -gone 
generations. 

Richard Hildreth, 1807-1865, was born at Deerfield, Mass. He graduated at Harvard, in 
1820; he studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but abandoned that profession for jour- 
nalism, and became aasistuut editor of the Boston Atlaa. 



526 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In 1836, he wrote an anti-slavery novel, called Archy Moore ; in 1S37, he wrote for tlie 
Atlas a series of powerful articles against the annexation of Texas. He was an active agent 
in the political campaign which resulted in the election of Harrison. He published a trea- 
tise upon The Theory of Politics and one upon Japan, besides, numerous essays and reviews. 

Hildreth's chief work is his History of the United States, from the discovery of the Conti- 
nent to the close of the Sixteenth Congress in 1S20, 6 vols., 8vo. This history is so well 
known that it need not be discussed at length in this place. In one respect, at least, it 
marked a new era in American writing, for it was the first great and persistent attemitt to 
strip Iiisturiugruphy of its exaggeration and partiality, and to reduce it to the plain, straight- 
> forward statement of truths. Hildreth, perhaps, has erred on the other side, by making his 
narrative too dry and coJd. He is iJso wanting in the power of generalization and in the 
philosophical deduction of great principles. But he has succeeded in producing a history 
of the United States that is not only readable, but valuable for its careful accumulation of 
facts. His work has lightened immensely the labors of those who come after him. 

Bancroft. 

George Bancroft, LL.D., 1800 , has clearly the honor of being 

thus far the ablest historian of the affairs of his own country. His History 
of the United States has not escaped criticism. Yet no one has hcvsitated 
to accord to it a place among the great historical works of the age. In 
comprehensiveness of plan, in fulness of detail, in accuracy of research, and 
elaborateness of finish, and even in the minor graces of style and diction, 
Bancroft's work may be safely quoted as among the standard histories of 
the world. 

Mr. Bancroft, a native of Worcester, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard, in the class of 
1817, has had a distinguished career, both as a statesman, and as a man of letters. After 
graduating at Cambridge, he went to Germany, and studied history and philology in Got- 
tingen, under Heercn, Bunsen, and others, and took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
there in 1820. On his return, he and Dr. Cogswell, in 1823, established the Round Hill 
School, at Northampton, Mass. He published also a volume of poems. While engaged in 
the Round Hill School, he translated and published a number of Heeren's historical works. 

The publication of the first three volumes of his own great historical work, 1834, 1^37, and 
1840, gave him immediate and general celebrity. Being an active democrat, he received 
from the party several important political appointments. He was made Collector of the 
Port of Boston in IS^'S, Secretary of the Navy in 1845, and Minister Plenipotentiary to Great 
Britain in 1846. On his return in 1849, he chose New York for his future residence, devoting 
himself to the continuation of his History and to other literary pursuits. In 1867, he was 
appointed American Minister at the Court of Berlin, and negotiated there an important 
treaty in regard to German emigrants to this country. 

Mr. Bancroft's great work. The History of the United States from the Discovery of the 
American Continent, has now proceeded to the ninth volume. The first three volumes are 
occupied with the settlement of the Colonies, the next three with the estrangement from 
the Mother Country, and the next three with the War for Independence. The work as a 
whole is undoubtedly the ablest, as it is the most comprehensive work on the subject, and it 
is accepted for the most part as the standard authority. It is written with great, perhaps 
excessive care as to the style, the author not having had the skill always to conceal his art. 
His delineations of character, his descriptions of scenery, and his artistic grouping of details 
are often in the highest style of historical eloquence. But his narrative seldom flows with 
that exquisite simplicity and cleai'ness which are the charm of Prescott's pages. 



FROM 18 50 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 627 

Henet Wilson, 1812 , a distinguished senator of the American Congress, was bom 

in Farmington, N. H. lie is a self-made man, having had no advantages of early education, 
except those of the district school, and having worked his way up by thrift and study from 
the business of a maker of shoes to hia present position as a leading senator of the United 
States. Mr. Wilson has been a diligent student, and has trained himself to be an accom- 
plished speaker and writer. Among his publications are: A History of the Anti-Slavery 
Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses; Military Measures of the 
United States Congress; Testimonials of American Statesmen and Jurists to the Truths of 
Christianity ; History of the Reconstruction Mea-sures of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth 
Congresses, etc. Mr. Wilson was nominated ou the Republican ticket, in 1872, for Vice- 
President of the United States. 

Tieknor. 

George Ticknor, LL.D., 1791-1871, acquired a permanent and honor- 
able place in literature by his History of Spanish Literature, and his Life 
of Pre.scott. 

Mr. Tickuor was educated at Dartmouth, graduating in 1807, at the early age of sixteen. 
He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. In 1815, having passed some years in 
private study, he went abroad to remain four years. The first two were spent in study at 
Gottingen, the remainder of the time in travel and laying the foundation of his subsequently 
famous library. 

In 1819 he returned, and entered upon the discharge of the duties of the recently created 
professorship of Modern Languages in Harvard University. This position he retained for 
fifteen years, contributing much bj' his success in teaching to a general awakening of inte- 
rest in German, French, Italian, and Spanish literatures. 

In 1835 he resigned his professorship, to go abroad once more. After three years, passed 
chiefly in Spain, where he completed his library, he returned and began the preparation of 
his great work on the History of Spanish Literature. It did not appear until the end of the 
year 1849. Its appearance was greeted with the warmest applause by critics and scholars 
of everj- country. In a few yeai-s it was translated into Spanish by Gayangos, and into Ger- 
man by Julius. A French translation is still incomplete. 

It is almost superfluous to speak in this place of the merits of a work so well known aa 
Ticknor's Spanish Literature. It instintly acquired and still retains the chief place in its 
department, effectually displacing the archaism of Bouterwek and the platitudes of Sis- 
mondi. The only fault, perhaps, that may be found with Mr. Ticknor, is, that his estimates 
of poetical talent are not always happy. 

Mr. Ticknor is the author of several minor works and pamphlets, among them the Memoirs 
of Nathan Apjjleton Haven, and Remarks on the Character of Edward Everett. But, next 
in merit to his Spanish Literature, and even superior to it in many respects, is his Life 
of Prescott, jiublished in 1864. Between the two historians there existed a life-long 
intimacy, based upon sympathy of character and community of study. Ticknor's Life of 
Prescott is the production of an author who is thoroughly familiar with every detail of liis 
subject, and draws from the richest collection of letters and fund of personal reminiscences. 
It is, from beginning to end, alive with the warmest glow of friendship, and written in such 
a charming style jis to make it forever one of the treasures of the English language. It por- 
trays to us the pure and happy life of a great American scholar as it unfolded itself day by 
day and year by year to one who was himself a great and nolde-ininded scholar. 

After the ajipearance of the Life of Prescott. Ticknor devoted himself exclusively and 
zcilously to the management of the Boston Public Lilirary. Thanks to his cunlributions 
and his counsels, that lil>rary has grown tcTT/e thb lar^^cst and best in the < onntry, and is 
now enriched by hid crowning gift, his unrivalled collection of wurku ou Spanish literature. 



528 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

In casting a retrospective glance over the labors of such a man as Ticknor, it is difficult 
to decide wlietlier lie has done himself and his country more honor as an historian, as a biog- 
rapher, or as a librarian. 

Gen. James Grant Wilson, 1832 , was born in Edinburgh, but since his first year has 

lived in the United States. The greater part of his life was spent in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 
where his father was a bookseller. James, after completing his studies, became partner 
with his father in the book-busiuess, and in 1860 they transferred it to Chicago. In 18G1, 
when the war broke out, James took an active part in raising volunteers, and afterwards in 
jservice under Grant and Banks, and rose to the rank of General of Volunteers. After the 
war he settled in New York city, and engaged actively in the profession of letters, writing 
abundantly for encyclopedias, magazines, and other periodicals. His separate publications 
have been: Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers ; Life and Campaigns of Genei-al Grant; 
Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers ; Mr. Secretary Pepys and his Diary ; Love in Letters, illus- 
trated in the correspondence of eminent persons. He edited the Works of Halleck, etc. 



Motley. 

John Lothrop Motley, D. C L., LL. D., 1814 , has followed in 

one respect the example of Prescott, and has made a select and important 
portion of European history his own. His E-ise of the Dutch Kepublic, 
and his History of the United Netherlands, have unquestionably filled a 
great hiatus in the history of the Old World. 

Mr. Motley is a native of Dorchester, Mass., and a graduate of Harvard University of the 
class of 1831. After graduation he passed some time in study and travel on the Continent, 
and practised law at home, but did not rise to much eminence at the bar. He also published 
two unsuccessful romances, Morton's Hope and Merry Mount, and contributed several arti- 
cles to the North American Review. Motley appears to have made extensive researches in 
history during all this time. In 1851 he went abroad again to collect still more materials, 
and to explore the recently opened government archives. The result of his labors appeared 
in 1854, in the celebrated historical work. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. This has been 
followed by The History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to 
the Synod of Dort, the last two volumes of which appeared in 1867. 

During the war, and until his quarrel with President Johnson, Mr. Motley was United 
States Ambassador at Menna, and when Grant succeeded to the administration, was appointed 
Minister to England. 

Motley's merits as an historian are too well known to require any extended discussion. 
His Rise of the Dutch Republic was rightly hailed as the dawn of a new star. The work filled 
a hiatus which had been long and keenly felt bj' both historians and the public. The inter- 
est which naturally attaches to the theme itself, the glorious struggles of the Dutch for 
independence, was enhanced by the careful research of the historian and the spirited style of 
tbe writer. Motley has spared no time or trouble in examining contemporaneous records 
which bad never before been used by the historians of the Netherlands, and many of 
which were still in manuscript in the government archives of Dresden, the Hague, Brussels, 
Paris, etc. 

The promise given by the Rise of the Dutch Republic has been fulfilled by its continua- 
tion, tbe History of tbe United Netherlands. Throughout we find the same careful study, 
the same use of freshly gathered material, the same graphic description, the same power of 
continuous historical uai'rative. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 529 

If we are to find any f;uxlt with Mr. Motley, it must be with his stylo and his ovor-zealooa 
partisanship. lie is apt to use single words and phrases carelessly, or at least not in accord- 
ance with their exact meaning, and is occasionally indiscriminate in his adjectives. Ilia 
sympathies are so strong in favor of the Protestant cause, ami against the oppressions exor- 
cised by the Spaniards, that a thoughtful critic might object that the author wrote rather 
as an advocate than as a judge. His description of the revolting death of Philip the Second, 
for instance, is too protracted and too bitter, and his preference for William of Orange is too 
strong. 



Kirk. 

John Foster Kirk, 1824 , bj his History of Charles the Bold, 

Duke of Burgundy, has, in like manner with Prescott and Motley, taken 
an important topic in European history, and so treated it as to make the 
subject henceforth his own. 

Mr. Kirk was born at Fredcrickton, N. B. lie received a classical education, chiefly in 
Nova Scotia, under the private tuition of a graduate of one of the English universities. He 
removed to Boston in 1S42, and resided there till within the last two years. He assisted Mr. 
Prescott in his historical researches and labors during the last eleven years of his life. 

Mr. Kirk has twice visited Europe, chiefly for the purpose of historical investigation in the 
archives and libraries of France and Switzerland. Besides his chief work, a History of 
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 3 vols., 8vo, he has written historical and critical articles 
for the North American Review, Atlantic Monthly, Lippincott's Magazine, etc. He is at 
present the editor of Lippincott's Magazine, and is also preparing for publication a new 
edition of Prescott's works. 

George M. Towle, 1840 , was born in Washington, D. C. He graduated at Tale Col- 
lege in 1861 ; graduated LL. B. at Howard in 1863 ; practised law in Boston, 1863-18G6 ; 
was appointed U. S. consul at Nantes, France, in 1866 ; transferred to the consulate at Brad- 
ford, England, in 1868 ; returned to Boston in 1870, and became managing editor of the Boston 
Commercial Bulletin ; retired from this place in 18T1. 

Mr. Towle has been a contributor to the North American Review, Fortnightly Review, 
New Englander, Atlantic, Harper's Monthly, All the Year Round, Temple Bar, London So- 
ciety, Once a Week, Gentleman's Magazine, The Graphic, Appleton's Journal, Hours at 
Home, The Galaxy, Lippincott's Magazine, Putnam's Magazine, Knickerbocker, Independent, 
Golden Age, Harper's Weekly, and Appleton's Cyclopedia. 

His published works are A History of Henry V. of England, large Svo ; Glimpses of 
History, 2 vols. 

Weston D. Willard, M.D., 1825 , was born at Wilton, Conn., and graduated at the 

Albany Medical College in 1848. He has published Biographical Memoirs of Physicians of 
Albany County; Annals of the Medical Society of Albany County; Biography of Thomas 
Spencer, M.D., etc. 

Charles Campbell, 180T , is a native of Petersburg, Ya., and a graduate of the College 

of New Jersey, of the class of 1825. Mr. Canijiboll was bred to the law, but has devoted 
himself to teaching and to literature. Among his publications are the following: An Intro- 
duction to tlie History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Yirginia, 1S49; Some Mate- 
rials for a Memoir of John Daly Burk; The Genealogy of the Spotawood Family in Scotland 
and Yirginia ; The Bland Papers. 

45 2 1 



630 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Col. John F. II. Claiborne, , is a native of Natchez, Miss. He was bred to the 

law, served in the Mississippi Legislature and in Congress, and then removed to New Orleans 
and became connected with the press. Col. Claiborne is the author of three historical works, 
all written with marked ability, and valuable for tlieir original materials: Life and Times 
of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan, 1860; Life and Correspondence of John A. Quit- 
man, Major-Gencral U. S. A., ISCU ; History of the War of Secession. 

John Henrt Logan, M.D., 1823 , was born in Abbeville District, S. C, of Scotch-Irish 

lineage, and graduated in South Carolina College in 1844. He published, in 1859, A History 
of the Upper Country of South Carolina, a work exhibiting " research, care, and thorough- 



James D. McCabe, Jr., , is a native of Richmond, born of old Irish lineage, that 

runs back to the time of the crusades. He was educated partly in Richmond, and partly 
in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington. His publications, chiefly historical, ai-e the 
following: Fanaticism and its Results, 1860; The Aid-de-Camp, a war story, 1863 ; Three 
Plays, on war topics, 1863 ; Life of Lieutenant-General T. J. Jackson, ISCS-Gi ; The Bohemian, 
a Cliristmas book, 1863 ; A Memoir of Gen. A. Sidney Johnston, 1864; Life and Campaigns 
of Gen. Rober|; E. Lee, 1867 ; The Gray-Jackets, a compilation of wit and humor, 1867. Be- 
sides these, Mr. McCabe has contributed nearly two hundred stories and a considerable num- 
ber of poems to periodicals, and has done some editorial labor. 

Edward A. Pollard. 

Edward A. Pollard, 1838 , has been the ablest, the most indus- 
trious, and the most conspicuous historian of the Confederacy. His chief 
work. The Lost Cause, a large octavo of 750 pages, is an important part of 
the literature of the times. 

Mr. Pollard was born in Nelson County, Va. He was educated partly at the University 
of Virginia, and partly at William and Mary. After completing his studies, he emigrated 
to California, thence to Mexico and Nicaragua, thence back to the United States. He was 
employed, in a clerkship at Washington during the last two years of Buchanan's adminis- 
tration. On the breaking out of the war, he went to Richmond, and was during the war 
the most widely known, and in many respects the ablest journalist in the Confederacy. 
Since the war, he has been engaged in literary pursuits. 

His publications are the following: Black Diamonds, 1859; Southern History of the War, 
1866; The Lost Cause, 1866 ; Lee and his Lieutenants, 1867 ; Life of Thomas Jefterson, 1S68 ; 
Life of Jefferson Davis, 1869. The Lost Cause Regained, 1868. He has also published a 
number of small paper-cover volumes; as, The Southern Spy, The Rival Administrations, 
The Two Nations, A Last Appeal to the People of the South, etc. 

John H. Wheeler, , of Murfreesboio, N. C, has written two historical works : 

Historical Sketch of North Carolina; History of North Carolina. 

Col. William Allan, , of the Confederate army, published, in 1868, The Battle- 
fields of Virginia, giving an account of Lee's army from the first battle of Fredericksburg, 
1862, to the death of Stonewall Jackson, 1863. 

Frank H. Alfriend, , is known chiefly by his Life of Jefferson Davis, 1868. 

"This book, while purporting to be a biograi)hy, is a comprehensive account, from the ex- 
treme Southern standpoint, of the causes and merits of the war; so that the life of Mr. 
Davis is rather the nucleus than the substautiul subject-matter of the text." — Round Table. 



FROM 1850 TO THE TRESENT TIME. 531 

His greatest work is his Life of Gen. Leo, containing over 700 pages. Of tliis, the follow- 
ing critical estimate is quoted by Mr. Davidson : "The author has used care and industry in 
collecting his materials, liis style is not brilliant or eloquent, but plain, clear, and forcible. 
There is no ambitious attempt at fine writing. Most of his estimates of public men, and 
his opinions on measures, will bo accepted witliout demur. lie seems inclined, however, to 
disparage President Davis; thinks his folly and obstinacy contributed largely to the loss of 
the Southern cause." 

Mrs. Joh.v P. McGuire, , wife of an Episcopal clergyman of Tappahannock, Va., 

kept during tlie war, from May, 1S61, to May, 18tl5, an exact diary of what she felt, saw, and 
did during all tho^e terrible years. This, not written for publication, and therefore all the 
more valuable for historical purposes, was published in 1867, under the title of Diary of a 
Southern Refugee during the War, by a Lady of Virginia. 

Robert R. Howiston, 1820 . a native of Virginia, but descended from an old Scotch 

family, has been for more than twenty years a leading lawyer in Richmond. In connection 
with his professional pursuits, he has cultivated literature, and has produced some historical 
works of higli value. The following are his publications: A History of Virginia. 2 vols. 
8vo, 18i7 ; Lives of Generals Morgan, Marion, and Gates, 1848 ; History of the War between 
the United States and tiie Confederate States ; Report of the Joint Committee of the Confed- 
erate Congress on the Treatment of Prisoners, 1805. 

"William James Rivers, , a native of Charleston, and Professor of Ancient Lan- 
guages and Literature in the University of South Carolina, has published A History of South 
Carolina to the close of the Proprietary Government. This History is spol^en of by compe- 
tent critics as a work of careful original research, and a most valuable contribution to our 
native historical literature. 

Francis Vincen-t, 1823 , is a native of Wilmington, Del. Ho edited for many years 

The Blue Hen's Chicken, at Wilmington, and has written A History of the State of Delaware. 

John Gilmary Shea, LL. D. 

John Gilmary Shea, LL. D., 1824 , has been a diligent sUtdent of 

liistory, and particularly of that relating to Catholic institutions, bibliogra- 
phy, and literature in the United States, and has made valuable contribu- 
tions to historical literature, both as an original author, and as a laborious 
and critical editor. 

Dr. Shea was born in New York city, and educated at the Grammar School of Columbia 
College, in which Ivis father was for many years one of the Principals. He is descended from 
N. Upshal, celebrated in Longfellow's New England Tragedies, who was thrown into prison 
in New England for counselling toleration, and died there, the first martyr to the cause. 

Dr. Shea's attention was first called to the romantic interest of the early French colonies 
in America by reading Bancroft's third volume. Since that time he has cultivated the field 
with special diligence. His efforts are all the more praiseworthy from the fact that they 
are not the fruits of learned leisure, but of hours snatchetl from business. 

The following are his priucijjal publications : Discovery and Exploration of (he Missis- 
sippi Valley ; History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Trilies of the Unitvil Stat-s ; 
Early A'oyage Up and Down the Mississippi; Perils of tlie Ocean and Wilderness; The 
Fallen Brave, biographies of officers who fell in the war; The Lincoln .Memorial ; Bibliog- 
raphy of American Catholic Bibles and Te^itumouts ; The Catholic Church iu tii« United 



532 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

States; Life of St. Angela of Merici of Brescia; Legendary History of Ireland; CathoHo 
Missionaries killed on the Indian Missions in the United States, published in the Catholic 
Magazine. 

His labors as translator and editor have been as follows: Charlevoix's New France, trans- 
lated and edited, 6 vols.; Memoirs and Relations concerning the French Colonies in North 
America, a series of manuscripts collected and edited by him, in 20 vols. ; Operation of the 
French Fleet under De Grasse ; Washington's Private Diaries ; The Library of American Lin- 
guistics, a series of Grammars and Dictionaries of the Indian Languages, 13 vols. He has also 
compiled several school-books for Catliolic schools, two popiilar prayer-books (St. John's 
Manual, and the Seraphic Manual), and has edited under the direction of Bishop McClosky an 
extremely accurate and valuable edition of Challoner's version of the Douay Bible. 

He edited the Historical Magazine for seven years (1859-1865). 

JoHH Augustus Shea, 1802-1845, was born in Ireland. He emigrated to the United States 
in 1827. He contributed to various magazines and newspapers, and published the following 
works : Ruddeki, a romance in verse ; Adolph and Other Poems ; Parnassian Wild Flowers ; 
Clantarf; Poems. 

RiCHAED McSherrt, M.D., 1817 , Professor in the medical department of the Univer- 
sity of Maryland, has found time to diversify his professional engagements by contributing 
to popular literature. 

Dr. McSherry was born at Martinsburg, W. Va. After receiving a classical education in 
that town and at Georgetown College, he engaged in the study of medicine, and graduated 
at the University of Pennsylvania in 18-41. He entered the medical staff of the army early, 
and served in the field, in Indian warfare, for about two years in Florida. Getting tired of 
life in the backwoods, he transferred himself to the navy, and made a cruise around the 
world in the U. S. frigate Constitution, in 1844, '45, and '46. On his return from the East, 
he entered once more the land forces, and was actively engaged in the campaign in Mexico, 
imder Gen. Scott, and after the capture of the capital, remained there until the declaration 
of peace. 

His knowledge of the Spanish language, with other circumstances, gave him, while in 
Mexico, access to the houses of many highly intelligent Mexican, Spanish, and foreign fam- 
ilies. From these personal associations he derived no little information as to the manners 
and customs, as well as the history and traditions, of the Mexican people. He gradually 
became interested in the fortunes and misfortunes of these people, and after his return 
found that his diary contained a mass of facts not familiar to the American public. This 
was the origin of his work called El Puchero, or A Mixed Dish from Mexico, in which mili- 
tary sketches of Gen. Scott's campaign were blended with observations upon the social, 
political, and moral condition of a neighboring people, living under a very bad imitation, or 
caricature, of a republican government. 

Shortly after the Mexican war, he resigned his commission in the navy and entered 
actively upon the practice of medicine in the city of Baltimore. His professional occupations 
were much increased by an appointment to a professorship in the Medical Department of 
the University of Maryland, which he still holds. Such engagements left little time for 
literature, but he has made contributions from time to time to various medical journals, as 
well as to some of a purely literary character. 

He has published one book since, made up of Essays and Lectures, on the following sub- 
jects: The Early History of Maryland; Mexico and.Mexican Affairs ; A Mexican Campaign; 
Homoeopathy; Elements of Hygiene; Health and Happiness. 

James McSherrt, 1819-1SG9, was born in the village of Liberty, Frederick County, Md. 
In 1838, being then not quite nineteen years of age, he graduated at Mount St. Mary's Col- 
lege, Maryland, and at once removed to Frederick City, Md., to begin the study of the law, 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 533 

After his admission to the bar, in 1840, lie removed to Gettysburg, Pa., and entered the law- 
office of tiie late Thaddeus Stevens. He remained with Mr. Stevens about a year, when 
he returned to Frederick, and tliere continued in his profession until his death in 18(39. 

5Ir. McSherry had always an inclination to literary pursuits, and after his admission to 
the bar he became a regular contributor to the United States Catliolic Magazine. 

In 1846 he published Pere Jean, or The Jesuit Missionary, which was republished in Lon- 
don, and afterwards reprinted in Baltimore, under the title of Father Laval. 

In 18-18 he published McSherry's History of Maryland, the only work containing the his- 
tory of that State from its settlement down to that date. Another and smaller edition, de- 
signed for the use of schools, was published in 1852, and adopted in many of the schools of 
the State. An abridgment of this is now the text-book used in most of the schools of Mary- 
land. 

In 1851 he published Willitoft, or the Daj's of James the First, a Tale. Of this work, 
Brownson says : " The author has a cultivated mind, a high order of ability, and a dash, at 
least, of real genius. His style, though slightly inclining to the florid, and sometimes defi- 
cient in flexibility and naturalness, is that of a practised writer, and not surpassed in force 
and beauty by that of any of our popular writers. In its graver parts it is marked by a 
calm and subdued strength which is refreshing in these days, when almost every writer 
scorns repose and is perpetually striving to appear stronger than he is." The work was 
translated into German. 

lie occasionally wrote for Catholic magazines, and lectured in Philadelphia, New York, 
and Williamsburg, for Catholic charities. 

"In religion, Mr. McSherry was born and educated, and lived and died, a Roman Catholic, 
and all his writings give evidence of the faith that he professed and practised." 

"William Henry Foote, D.D., 1794-1869, one of the Fathers of the Presbyterian Church 
in Virginia, did a valuable service to lettofs by his contributions to local history. His 
Sketches of North Carolina, and Sketches of Virginia, contain a vast amount of historical 
information derived from original sources, and by means of personal Inquiries. Besides 
these volumes, he left another work, which was published after his death, called The 
Huguenots, or Reformed French Church. 

Dr. Foote was born in Colchester, Conn., and educated at Tale, graduating in 1816. He 
studied theology at Princeton. All his ministerial life was spent in Virginia, except a part 
of one year in North Carolina. He was settled at Romney, W. Va., in 1S24, and most of his 
time, from that date to the time of his death, was given to labor in that vicinity. 

JoHX B. Dillon, 1807 , was born In Brooke County, Va. When .John was an infant, 

his father removed to Ohio. There John learned in the district school " to read, write, and 
cipher." At the age of nine, his father dying, John returned to his native county and ap- 
prenticed himself to a printer. At the age of seventeen, with no capital but hia composing- 
stick, he went to Cincinnati to seek his fortune. Like many others in his position, while 
setting type he courted the muses, contributing poems, in 1826-1829, to the Cincinnati 
Gazette, the Cincinnati Mirror, and Flint's Western Review. In 1834, he went to Logans- 
port, Ind., and began editing a paper. Ilis tastes led him to the study of local history, and 
in 1842 he published Historical Notes, as the first-fruits of his inquiries. In 1845, ho was 
elected State Librarian, and filled the office for a series of years. In 1859, ho jiublished A 
History of Indiana, a large volume of 636 pages, 8vo, containing a history of the entire 
North-West Territory, as well as of Indiana, and an exceedingly valuable contribution to 
local history. 

William Jewett Tennet, 1811 , was bom at Newport. R. T., and graduated at Yale, in 

the class of 1832. Uo hau written The Military and Naval History of the Rebellion; A 
Grammatical Analysis. 
45* 



534 AMERICAN LITEPwVTUHE. 

George Stillman IIillard, 1808 , born at Machia.^, Me. ; graduated at Harvard, 1828 ; 

admitted to the Suffolk bar, where he has practised ever since. Hillard's life has been a 
busy one, he having served in the city government of Boston, and in both branches of the 
State legislature; also as editor of the American Jurist, and contributor to the North 
American and to various other reviews. He has also delivered a number of choice 
orations, of which tho most famous, perhaps, is the Eulogy on Daniel Webster. The hap- 
piest of his essays, according to Griswold, is that on The Mission of the Poet. Hillai-d has 
published Six Months in Italy ; translated Guizot's Essay on the Character of Washing- 
ton, and edited a valuable edition of the works of Spenser. He has also prepared a series of 
Gi-aded Readers, in four parts, which are highly esteemed and widely used throughout the 
schools of the country. He published in 1864 a Life of McClellan. 

President A. D. White. 

Andrew Dicksox White, LL.D., 1832 , President of Cornell 

University, has given special attention to historical studies, and has made 
several valuable contributions to historical literature. 

Mr. White is a native of Cortland County, N. Y. He studied one year at Hobart College, 
Geneva, and passed the remainder of his collegiate course at Yale, graduating in 1853. In 
his Senior year he succeeded in taking the Yale Literary and the De Forest prizes. After 
graduation he spent upwards of two years in Europe, chiefly at Berlin and Paris, in the 
prosecution of historical studies. He was also Attache to the American Legation in St. 
Petersburg for six months, and travelled on foot through many of the historical grounds of 
the Continent, especially in northern and western France. He returned to America in 1856, 
and passed one year at Yale, as special student of history. During this time he contributed 
to the New Englander the article On the Study of History, and to the Atlantic Monthly an 
article On Jefferson and Slavery. 

In 1857 he was elected to the chair of History and English Literature in Michigan Univer- 
sity. This institution was then far from its present flourishing condition, and had in fact 
seen hard times. It had suffered much from the jealousy of denominational interests and 
of uneducated men, in addition to the trials incident to any attempt at university organi- 
zation in a new district of country. Through the able management of President Tappan, 
aided by the generous exertions of several of the faculty, — conspicuous among whom was 
Mr. White, — the University was fairly set upon its present path of prosperity. While Pro- 
fessor in the University, Mr White published a Syllabus of Lectures on Modern History, 
contributed to the Atlantic Monthly articles on The Administration of Richelieu, and on 
The Growth and Declination of the Serf System in Russia, and delivered throughout the 
State numerous lectures on historical subjects. So strenuous were his exertions during this 
period that his health became impaired, and he was obliged to resign his professorship in 
1862 and travel in Europe for six months. While in London he published A Word from 
the Northwest, in reply to certain strictures in Dr. Russell's Diary. 

He returned to Syracuse, N. Y., in the fall of 1862, and was elected to the State Senate, 
and re-elected in ISG-l. During his two terms in tlie Senate Mr. White devoted his attention 
to the relations between the State and the Federal Government, then extremely complicated 
b}' reason of the war, and to the State educational system. He was Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Education, and inti-oduced several important bills, among them those for making 
the common schools entirely free, for cstablisliing Normal schools, and for codifying the 
laws relating to public instruction, etc. As member of the Committee on Municipal Affairs 
he was appointed one of a commission to investigate certain departments in New York 
city. These investigations resulted in the abolishment of the old sanitary board and the 
establishment of tho present Board of Health, a measure which proved to be the rescue of 
the city from threatened- attacks of cholera. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 535 

During Mr. White's term of office tlie qupstion arose as to the acceptance by the State of 
the Coi)2;ressional land endowment for colleffes of agriculture and the nieclianic arts. Tlie 
share allotted to Now York amoinited to ns-arly a million of acres. There was much differ- 
ence of opinion as to the proper (iispositioii ol this iniraense gift. The friends of the already 
existing colleges wished to have it parcelled among them, and there seemed no prospect of 
a satisfactory adjustment. Mr. Wliite opposed from the first this scheme of division, and 
advocated the policy of keeping the endowment as an entirety for founding a new institu- 
tion which should he worthy of the country and the State. Mr. Cornell, himself a senator 
at the time, then came forward and offered an additional donation of $5'j0,0()0, provided the 
Congressional endowment should be preserved intact and the institution located at Ithaca, 
Mr. CornelTs native town. After further delay and discussion the offer was accepted, and 
finally in 1865 was passed the bill incorporating The Cornell University. This may be re- 
garded a-s a turning point in Mr. White's career. Ilenceforth be was to serve the interests 
of education iu a newer and higher sphere than l)efore. 

While senator he delivered several important addresses, among them the speech on Gov. 
Seymour's message, on Municipal Affairs in New York city, oa the Cornell University Bill, 
and the address at the services commemorative of the death of President Lincoln. At the 
expiration of his senatorship he was elected to the Professorship of tlie History of Art and 
the Directorship of the Art Department in Yale College, but declined. He was ai)pointed a 
Trustee of tlie newly incorporated Cornell University, and was elected President in 1866. 
Since then his time and attention have been devoted to the University. He visited Europe 
for the third time, in 1S67-186S, for the purpose of examining into the organization of the 
leading schools of agriculture and technology, and of purchasing books and apparatus for 
the university. He returned in July, 18t>8. 

As might be expected, Mr. White has had but little leisure for authorship. In 1866 ho 
published the Keport of the Trustees on the Organization of the University; in 18G7 he de- 
livered the (}). j3. *c. Oration at Yale on The Greatest Foe to Democracy ; in 1868, the inaugural 
address at the opening of the University; 1S69, an address l>eforc the State Agricultural 
Society on Scientific Education, and one before the Cooper Institute on The Battlefields of 
Science. In 1870 lie was appointed one of the United States Commissioners to &vnto Domingo, 
and took a leading share in the preparation of the official report of the Commission. His 
greatest work, however, is the University itself, a perpetual witness to his zeal and executive 
ability. Mr. White has hitherto sacrificed to its interest his chosen studies. But now that 
the University is placed upon a firm basis and thoroughly organized, it is to be hoped that 
he will henceforth be able to devote himself to those historical studies for which he is so 
well qualified by temperament and special training. 

Francis Parkman, Jr., 1S23 , a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, of the 

cla.ss of 1844:, is the author of several valuable contributions to American history: The 
California and Oregon Trail, or Sketches of Prairie Life; The Conspiracy of Pontiac; The 
Jesuits iu North America ; The Discovery of the Great West ; and The Pioneers of France in 
the New World. By these special studies .Mr. Parkman h;is made himself an authority on 
all that is connected with the early settlement of the West. Ilis style is admirably clear 
and graphic, and his treatment of the subjects is to be commended for its impartiality. The 
Conspiracy of Pontiac is the description of one of the most thrilling episodes in American 
historj', and is told in a manner worthy of the theme. 

WiNTiiROP Sargent, 1825 , is a native of Philadelphia, and a graduate of the University 

of Pennsylvania, of the class of 1845. He is at present a member of the New York bar. Mr. 
Sargent is the author of sevenvl valuable Contributions to American history. These are, 
The History of Braddock's Expedition, The Loyalist Poetry of the Revolution, The Life of 
Msyor Andre, and one or two minor works. He has also contributed to the North .\mericHn 
Review, and other magazines, and has devoted much time to the preparation of a conipleto 



536 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

^catalogue of works relating to America. This is not yet finished. Mr. Sargent's works are 
distinguished by accuracy of research and an impartial spirit. 

John Dennison Baldwin, A. M., 1809 , by his work on Ancient America, and his Pre- 

Historic Nations, has made for himself an honored place among the contributors to histor- 
ical literafure. Mr. Baldwin was born in North Stonington, Conn., and began very early in 
life to depend entirely upon himself, his father having inherited a handsome fortune with- 
out ability to keep it. Wlien sixteen years old he was found qualified to become a teacher. 
In fact, he was nearly fitted to enter college, having resolved to obtain the best education 
possible and to study law. He did not graduate regularly, although he studied at New 
Haven ; and he did not become a lawyer, although he read law. He finally studied theology 
and graduated in the theological seminary at New Haven ; and in 1839, the College gave him 
the honorary degree of Master of Arts. 

He did parish service several years, chiefly at North Bradford, Conn., as an Orthodox 
Congregationalist. Chronic laryngitis, by disabling his voice, constrained him to become 
a journalist, and he has been more or less closely connectd with nev/spapers for more than 
thirty years. 

After being connected with various newspapers, he bought in 1858 the Worcester Daily 
Spy, which he still owns and conducts. 

Prom March 4, 1863, to March 4, 1869, he represented his district in Congress. 

Besides writing much for the magazines, he has published three books, as follows: 'Ray- 
mond Hill and Other Poems, 1847 ; Pre-Historic Nations, 1869; Ancient America, in Notes 
on American Archaeology, 1872. 

The two works last named display great research, as well as great sobriety of judgment, 
and are exceedingly interesting. 



Henry C. Lea. 

Henry Caeey Lea, 1825 , has, while zealously pursuing his pro- 
fession as a bookseller, found the leisure to prosecute historical research, 
and has given to the public several interesting volumes as the fruit of his 
studies. 

Mr. Lea was born and has always lived in Philadelphia. He is by profession a bookseller, 
and represents the oldest bookselling establishment in the United States, that founded in 
the last century by Matthew Carey, and continued now in the same fiimily to the third gen- 
eration ill the person of Mr. Lea. The efforts to keep up the business of the old house have 
not left him much leisure for study. He has, however, managed to make several valuable 
contributions to literatute. 

Besides numerous fugitive writings, political and literary, he has published three vol- 
umes : Superstition and Force : Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, 
and Torture; An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church; Studies 
in Church History: The Rise of the Temporal Power, Benefit of Clergy, Excommunication. 

" His books have it for the prime element of their value that they contain authentic his- 
tory, drawn directly from its sources. The author has, indeed, his historical theories; he 
marks with care the development of ideas and tendencies, and traces with delicate skill the 
filaments that bind seemingly isolated events, and give unity to the collective movement 
of a race or an age ; yet he never generalizes till he has all the facts within his grasp ; his 
conclusions never furnish him his premises, he never picks over his materials to select only 
such as will sustain his theories. In fine, these essays are models in their kind — the simple, 
orderly presentation of facts, events, and movements in their bearing on their respective sub- 



FROM 1850 TO TJIE PRESENT TIME. 537 

jects — each a complete and exhaustive monograph, containing, with ample means for reri- 
fication in rclerenccs and extracts, all thi't the reader needs to place himself at the point of 
view which the author lias attained by the most painstaking and elaborate research." — 
North American Review, July, 1870. 

TiNCENZo BOTTA, 1S18 , Professor of Italian Literature in the University of the city 

of Ni-w Yoric, is a native of Turin. He was educated in tiie University of Turin, receiving 
from it the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. lie was Professor of Philosophy, first in the 
Royal College of Cuneo, and afterwards in the University of Turin. In 1849, he wiis elected 
a member of the Italian Parliament; and in 1850, in company with Dr. Parola, another 
member of the Parliament, he visited by direction of the Government the universities and 
schools of Germany, and made a voluminous report on the Prussian system of schools. In 
1853, he came to the United States to inspect its school system, and published his observa- 
tions in the Historia Contemporaneaof Turin. He also published in this country an Account 
of the System of Education in Piedmont. His other publications have been : Life, Character, 
and Policy of Cavour ; Dante,. as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet. He has in press An His- 
torical Account of Modern Philosophy in Italy. 

Prof. Botta is not related to Charles Botta, the historian of the American Revolution. 

John Rometn Brodhead, 1814 , was born in Philadelphia, but is a resident of New 

York. He was graduated at Rutgers College, N. J. He was for several years attached to the 
American Legation at the Hague, and while there was employed by the State of New York 
as agent to collect information in regard to the early history of that State. He spent three 
years exploring the public records in Holland, Paris, and London, and returned in 1844, 
bringing with him 80 volumes of documents. The Legislature subsequently authorized the 
publication of these in 10 vols. 4to. Mr. Brodhead has commenced a popular History of the 
State of New York, which bids fair to become a classic, ranking with the works of Prescott, 
Motley, and Irving. Two volumes have already appeared 

William Adee Whitehead, 1810 , is a native and resident of Newark, N. J. He was 

Collector of Customs at Key West, 1800-38, and afterwards, for a long time, an officer in the 
New Jersey Railroad Company. He is at present connected with an Insurance Company in 
Newark. He has been for a long time a Trustee of the New Jei-sey State Normal School, and 
became President of the Trustees on the death of Judge Field, in 1871. Mr. Whitehead, though 
all his life engaged in active business, has found the leisure to prosecute historical studies, 
and has made several contributions to the history of New Jersey. The following are his 
principal publications: East Jersey under the Proprietary Government; Biographical 
Sketch of William Franklin, Governor of New Jersey; Contributions to the early History 
of Perth Amboy; Circumstances leading to the Establishment, in 1769, of the Northern 
Boundary Line between New York and New Jersey; The Eastern Boundary of New Jersey ; 
A Review of Circumstances connected with the Settlement of Elizabeth, etc. 

Mansfield Tracy Walworth, 1836 , was born in Albany. His father, Reuben H. 

Walworth, was at that time chief judge of the Court of Chancery of New York State, and is 
well known to all jurists as Chancellor Waiworth, the last Chancellor of New York State. 

Mr. Walworth graduated at Union College at the age of eighteen years, studied law at 
the Cambridge law school, and was after three years study admitted to practise law in the 
courts of New York State and the Supreme Court of the United States. He became imme- 
diately connected with the great Spike Case of the Troy Iron and Nail Factory i-s. Erastus 
Corning of Albany, as clerk of the reference, and remained clerk of that great suit involving 
$1,200,000 for ten years. 

While acting in this capacity, he wrote Lulu, a Tale of \\\r- National Hotel Poisoning, of 
which 5,000 copies were sold; — then cumo Hotspur, a Talc of the Old Dutch Manor, of 



538 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

■which about the same number were sold. His next work was Stormcliff, a tale of the 
Hudson, of which the sale was still greater. 

In 1869, he published the novel, Warwick, or the Lost Nationalities of America. It was 
highly praised and vigorously attacked both in America and England, and in three years 
has sold 75,000 copies. In 1871 came out Delaplaine, an historical novel of the Persian and 
Russian war of 1826-1828. It also was successful, the sale being 45,000 copies. In 1872 
was publislied Beverley, with like success. 

Mr. Walworth's main work, however, is an historical one. He has just completed a large 
volume, The Life of Chancellor Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York State. It js the 
first of six volumes, to be called the Lives of the Six Chancellors of New York State, one 
volume to each chancellor. It is a work requiring great study and research, covering to a 
certain extent the hisiory of New York from 174;6 to 1868. 

Rev. B. F. De Costa, 1831 , a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, has published 

several valuable contributions to the historical literature of the country. The most impor- 
tant of them are the following : Tlie Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen ; 
Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson ; The Northmen in Maine ; A i\lonograph on the 
Moabite Stone. He has published also several monographs in regard to Mount Desert and 
Lake George: Scenes in the Isle of Mount Desert, coast of Maine; Lake George, its Scenes 
and Characteristics, with Sketches of Schroon Lake, the Lake of the Adirondacks and Lake 
Luzerne ; Narrative of Events at Lake George, etc. ; Notes on the Pirates of Fort George ; 
The Fight at Diamond Isle, etc. Mr. De Costa was born in Charlestown, Mass. He gradu- 
ated at the Biblical Institute in Concord, N. H., in 1857. He was chaplain in the army 
during the war, and is at present connected with the Episcopal press in New York city. 

Thomas Buckixgham Smith, 1S10-1S71, was born on Cumberland Island, Ga. Business 
called his father to Mexico, and an appointment as United States Consul at that city led to 
a residence tliere of several years, while St. Augustine had become the home of his family. 
In his boyhood young Buckingham was for a time in Mexico, where he acquired great 
facility in the Spanish language and a Spanish tone that adhered to him through life. At 
the age of fifteen he had the misfortune to lose his father, and was soon after placed at 
Washington, now Trinity College, in Hartford, Conn., to pursue the scientific course in that 
institution. Having resolved to devote himself to the legal profession, he next entered the 
Cambridge Law School, and afterward studied in the office of Judge Fessenden in Porthiud, 
Me. On completing his studies he commenced the practice of his profession at St. Augus- 
tine. As the growth of his business was slow, he was tempted into the avenue of political 
life, and was elected to the Assembly of Florida, and promoted to the Speakership. 

In 1850, he was appointed Secretary of Legation to Mexico, a position for which his inti- 
mate knowledge of Spanish life and language pre-eminently fitted him. Here he collected a 
rich store of documents relating to tlie history of Florida from the archives and libraries 
of that capital. In 1851, he became United States Charge d' Affaires near the Government 
of Mexico, and on the appointment of a new minister resumed his duties as Secretary. 

From 1855 to 1858, Mr. Smith was employed as Secretary of Legation to Spain, and dis- 
charged with eminent ability the diplomatic duties of tliat position. During this period ho 
formed the acquaintance of the distinguished orientalist, Don Pascual de Gayangos, and Do 
Rios the editor of Ovicdo. He also industriously explored the archives at Simancas and at 
Seville, collecting documents, portraits, coats of arms, and other objects bearing on his pro- 
jected work — an exhaustive history of Florida. Thispurposc he did not live to accomplish, 
but he left a rich mass of materials to he used bj- other hands. In 18(55, he spent several 
months in Spain, making important additions to the historical matter he had before brought 
together. 

The following are his principal printed works : Narrative of Aivar NuTlez Cabega de Vaca; 
Memoir of Hernando de Escalente Fontaneda ; Espiritu Santo Bay ; History, Language, and 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 539 

Arcliscology of the Pimos of the River Gila, New Mexico; Inrjuir}- into the Authenticity of 
Documents concerning a Discovery in North America claimed to have been made by Vcr- 
razzano; Narratives of the Career of Uernando de Soto in tlie Conquest of Florida; 
Sketches of Spanish-American Authors in Duyckincka Cyclopedia; Grammar of the Lan- 
guage of the Ileve Indians of Sonora; and Grammar of the Pima or Nevome, a Language 
of Sonora, in the series of American Linguistics. 

Samuel Gardixer Drake, 1798 , was born at Pittsfield, N. II., and receive 1 a common- 
school education. He established, in 182S, the Antiquarian Bookstore in Boston, and hsia 
been throughout his life an active and valued contributor to local history and antiquities. 
His publications in this line have been numerous. The following are some of the most 
important: Indian Biography; Indian Captivities; History and Anliquities of Boston; 
Annals of "Witchcraft in the United States; History of Five Years' French and Indian War, 

etc., etc. — Francis Samuel Drake, 1828 , oldest son of the preceding, was born in 

Northwood. M;iss., but has spent most of his life in Boston, where he was educated in the 
public schools, and became a Franklin Medal scholar. He is the author of the Dictionary 
of American Biography, 1872, 1019 pages royal 8vo, the latest and the best work extant on 

that subject. — Samuel Adams Drake, 1833 , third son of S. G. Drake, was born and 

educated in Boston. He is the author of Old Landmarks, and Historic Personages of Boston. 



Joseph Thomas. 

Joseph Thomas, LL. D., , of Pliiladelphia, has made the 

reading public of every name his debtors by his Gazetteer and liis Bio- 
graphical Dictionary. Better works of the kind have never been published 
in English. 

Dr. Thomas is a native and resident of Philadelphia. He published in 1845, in connection 
■with Thomas Baldwin, A Pronouncing Gazetteer, afterwards enlarged into A Complete Pro- 
nouncing Gazetteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World, 2317 pp. large Svo. lie is the 
author also of A Comprehensive Medical Dictionary ; First Book in Etymology ; and Travels 
in Egypt and Palestine. But his chief work is A Biographical Dictionary in two large vol- 
nmes, 2345 pp. This work is a marvel of accuracy, and of judicious condensation. Most 
large works of this kind being produced by many hands, want uniformity of treatment, and 
are very unequal, — good on some points, poor on others. Dr. Thomas's book seems to be 
entirely his own, and is remarkably homogeneous. The same careful, conscientious hand 
is traceable in every article, big or little. It is, to a most unusual degree, uniform through- 
out, and uniformly good. Dr. Thomas is now engaged in the preparation of A New Illus- 
trated American Cyclopaedia, to be completed in 3 vols., imp. Svo. 

Recdex Aldridge Guild, 1822 , Librarian of Brown University, has made some valu- 
able contributions to local history. Mr. Guild was born at West Dedham, Mass. He grad- 
uale<l at Brown Univei-sity in 1847, and succeeded Prof. Jewett aa Librarian in 1848, ia 
which oflBce he has remained ever since. Mr. Guild has taken an active part in Sunday- 
School interests, as well as in those of the daily school, and has been a prominent member 
of the city council of Providence. His publications are the following: Life, Times, and 
Correspondence of James Manning, and the Early History of Brown University; History 
of Bro\\'n University, with Illustrative Documents; A Biographical Introduction to the 
Writings of Roger Williams; Letter of John Cotton, and Roger Williams's Reply; Queries 
of Highest Consideration, l)y Roger Williams (Kdited); Rhode Island in the Continental 
Congress, with the Journal of Iho Couvculiou tliut adopted the Coubtilulion, 17G5-17'JO. By 



540 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Hon. William R. Staples, LL.D. (edited) ; The Librarian's Manual, a Treatise on Bibliog- 
raphy, comprising a select and descriptive list of bibliographical works ; to which are added 
Sketches of Public Libraries, illustrated with engravings. 

John Savage, 1828 , is a native of Ireland, who emigrated to this country in conse- 
quence of the troubles of 1848. Mr. Savage has contributed to several American periodicals, 
among them The American Review, The Democratic Review, The Irish Citizen, etc. The 
principal of his separate works ai-e : Lays of the Fatherland ; The Modern Revolutionary His- 
tory of Ireland; Sibyl, a tragedy ; Under the Rose, a comedy, etc. His poetical pieces were 
collected in one volume in 1863, under the title. Faith and Fancy. Mr. Savage also com- 
posed a short sketch of the Life of Andrew Johnson, and a contribution to the Fenian Cause, 
entitled Fenian Heroes and Martyrs. 

Henry Stevens, 1819 , is a native of Vermont. He studied at Middlebury College and 

afterwards at Yale. After graduation, and after studying law at Harvard, Mr. Stevens re- 
moved, in 1845, to London, and made that city his permanent residence. He is well known 
to all bibliographers and collectors of rare works. His labors have been chiefly directed to 
supplying the British Museum with rare works on America, and American libi-aries with 
rare European works. In addition to his services as a book-gatherer, Mr. Stevens has pub- 
lished and edited a number of valuable works chiefly on American bibliography. Promi- 
nent among them are his History of Printing for the Use of the Blind (printed in the reports 
of the Juries at the London Exhibition of 1851); Catalogue Raisonne of English Bibles; 
An Analytical Index to the Colonial Documents of New Jersey in the State Paper Oflices of 
England; a similar work for Maryland; A Collection of Historical Papers relating to Rhode 
Island (selected and transcribed from the State Paper Ofl&ce in London) ; Historical Nuggets, 
or Bibliotheca Americana, etc., etc. 

William H. Whitmore, 1836 , genealogist, and editor of the New England Genealogi- 
cal Register, and of the Heraldic Journal, was born in Dorchester, Mass. He has contributed 
to Appleton's Cyclopaedia, the North American Review, and the Knickerbocker Magazine, 
Mr, Whitmore has published A Register of Families settled at Medford, Mass. ; The Hall 
Family, settled at Medford; Descendants of Francis Whitmore, of Cambridge; The Manor 
Family of Whitmore; The Temple Family, at Eowdoin ; The Lane, Reyner, and Whipple 
Families, Yorkshire, Mass. ; The Quincy Family, Boston ; The Norton Family ; The Winthrop 
Family; The Hutchinson Family; A Handbook of American Genealogy; The American 
Genealogist; Elements of Heraldry; Origin of the Founders of the Thirteen Colonies. 

Rev. J. T. Headley, 1814 , is a native of Walton, N. Y., and a graduate of Union 

College. He studied theology in the Auburn Theological Seminary. After preaching for 
two yetirs in Stockbridge, Mass., he was obliged to desist on account of loss of health. He 
travelled in Europe for two years, and since that time has occupied himself chiefly with 
literary pursuits. The following is a list of his principal works : The Alps and the Rhine; 
Letters from Italy ; The Sacred Mountains; Sacred Scenes and Characters; Napoleon and 
his Marshals; The Old Guard of Napoleon; Washington and his Generals; Life of Oliver 
Cromwell ; Lives of Winfield Scott and Andrew Jackson ; Life of General Washington ; His- 
tory of the Second War between England and the United States; Life in the Adirondacks ; 
Sketches and Rambles, etc. Mr. Ileadley's writings are not entitled to any merit as original 
historical investigations, but, by reason of their easy and lively style, and popular treat- 
ment of the subjects, they have met with great success, over 200,000 copies having been 
eold. 

Rev. George G. Ellis, 1815 , a distinguished Unitarian divine and author, is a native 

of Boston. He wrote the Lives of John Mason, Anue Hutchinson, and William Penn, for 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 541 

Sparks's American Biography ; A Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy; Evidences of 
Christianity, a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute. lie was appointed Professor 
of Theology in the Harvard Divinity School, in 1857. 

Samuel Eliot, LL. D., 1821 , is a native of Boston. After graduating at Harvard, ho 

spent some years in European study. While abroad, he fornu-d the design of writing a 
History of Liberty. Part I. The Ancient Romans, 2 vols., appeared in IS-ll); Part II. The 
Early Christians, 2 vols., in 1858. He has published also The Life and Times of Savonarola; 
Manual of United States History; and numerous contributions to periodical literature. He 
was elected President of Trinity College, Hartford, in 1860. 

Benjamix Perlet Poore, 1820 , is a native of Newburyport, Mass. lie has had a 

pretty large experience in newspaper life, both as editor and as correspondent, and has writ- 
ten the following books: Campaign Life of Zachary Taylor, 800,000 copies sold; Rise and 
Fall of Louis Philippe; Early Life of Napoleon Bonaparte; The Conspiracy Trial for the 
Murder of the President ; Novelettes, reprinted from Gleason's Pictorial. 



Mrs. E. F. Ellet. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Fries Ellet, 1818 , has contributed largely, in 

various ways, to literature, but has achieved her most lasting success in the 
line of biographical and historical composition. 

Mrs, Ellet is a daughter of Dr. W. N. Lummis. She was born in Sodus, N. Y., and edu- 
cated in Geneva and Aurora, on Lake Ontario. Her parents were persons of strict religious 
principles, and instructed their children most carefully in the doctrines and practices of 
Christianity. Mrs. Ellet, like the other members of her family, hiis remained steadfast in 
the faith in which she was educated. She was married at an early age to Dr. W. H. Ellet, 
then a Professor in Columbia College, New York. He was elected soon after to a Professor- 
ship in South Carolina College, in Columbia, S. C, in which place they lived for thirteen 
years. They then returned to New York, where Dr. Ellet died, and where Mrs. Ellet still 
resides. 

Mrs. Ellet began authorship at an early age, and has been an industrious and highly popu- 
lar writer. Besides contributing largely to the magazines and reviews, she has published 
numerous books. The following are the chief: Poems, Original and Selected ; Teresa Con- 
tarini, a Tragedy; Scenes in the Life of Joanna of Sicily ; The Characters of Schiller; Ram- 
bles about the Country ; Evenings at "Woodlawn ; Fjimily Pictures from the Bible; Watch- 
ing Spirits; Novelettes of the Musicians; Legends and Traditions of European Nations; 
Summer Rambles in the West; Pioneer Women of the West; Queens of American Society ; 
The Court Circles of the Republic ; The Domestic History of the American Revolution ; The 
Women of the American Revolution. The last-named work is the one by which she hi\s won 
her highest laurels. Much of the material was collected from private and original sources, 
making the work a positive addition to the national history, and the narrative and coloring 
are given with rare artistic skill. The work has passed through many editions, and deserves 
to become a part of the permanent literary wealth of the nation. 

Frank Moore, 1S2S , is a native of Concord, N. II. Mr. Moore is the author of several 

valuable contributions to American history. The first was Songs and Ballads of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. This was followed by the Cyclopccdia of American Eloquence, a well chosen 
compilation from the great Speeches of groat American orators, beginning with James Otis 
and finishing with S. S. Prentice. The last work is The Rebellion Record, ucollettiou of 
46 



542 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

documents, reports, descriptions, and other contemporaneous matter relating to tlie Avar, 
IS6I-IS60. It has the great merit of preserving in compact form a mass of important 
data and incidents which might otherwise have been scattered or even lost. 

James 0. Notes, M.D., 1829 , was born at Owasco, Cayuga County, N. Y. lie wa.= at 

one time surgeon in tlie Ottoman army. lie has been connected, editorially and otherwise, 
Avith the Knickerbocker Magazine, Putnam's, and The National, and has been Correspon- 
dent of the New York Tribune and the London Morning Chronicle. lie has written Rou- 
menia, the Border Land of the Christian and the Turk ; and The Gypsies, their History, Origin, 
and Manner of Life. 

Robert Tomes, 1816 , was born in the city of New York. lie was graduated at Trinity 

College, Hartford, and afterward studied medicine in Philadelphia and in Edinburgh. lie 
made several voj-ages as ship surgeon in the vessels of the Pacific Steamship Company, 
between Panama and San Francisco. His first volume, Panama in 1855, contains a graphic 
account of an excursion from New York to Panama by the newly completed railroad across 
the isthmus. This was followed in 1856 by Lives of Richaid Coeur de Lion, and Oliver Crom- 
well, lie assisted in compiling the Narrative of Perry's Expedition to Japan, and in pre- 
paring Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Biography. His other works are : Battles of America by 
Sea and Land, including the war of 1812, and the war with Mexico ; The War with the South. 
He has contributed also to Harper's Weekly and Monthly, and to the Evening Post. 

J. Watts de Peyster, 1821 , a descendant of the old De Peyster family of New 

York, holds the rank of brigadier-general in the State militia. Gen. De Peyster is the 
author of several works, the most important of which are the Life of Leonard Torsteuson ; 
The Dutch at the North Pole and the Dutch in Maine ; Secession in Switzerland and in the 
United States compared ; and Decisive Conflicts of the Late Civil War. The Life of Torsteu- 
son was honored with a medal from the king of Sweden. Gen. De Peyster has also edited 
one or two military journals and contributed largely to the reviews. 

Lossing, 

Benson John Lossing, 1813 , by his pictorial books of various 

kinds, has not only given a special interest to many places memorable for 
their historical associations, but he has preserved from destruction many 
important facts and traditions connected with the national history. 

Mr. Lossing is a native of Dutchess County, N. Y. Before the publication of the works by 
which he is chiefly known, he was the editor of two papers in Poughkeepsie. His principal 
works are: Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution; Life and Times of Philip Schuyler; Lite 
of Washington; Pictorial History of the Civil War of the United States; History of the War 
of 1812. Mr. Lossing's works are full of illustrations, nearly all of which are drawn and 
engraved by himself. The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, for instance, has 1,1C0 
engravings, and the author travelled nine thousand miles in collecting the materials. No 
one, probably, has done more than Mr. Lossing to diffuse an accurate knowledge of the 
revolutionary period of United States history. His works are a treasure-house of facts and 
incidents connected with the leading events and prominent families of those times. 

Samuel Penniman Bates, LL. D., 1827 , was born in Mendon, Mass. The rudiments of 

his education were obtained at a common school in a rural district. At the age of sixteen 
he commenced teaching a common school in Milford. His success led him to commence the 
study of Ihc auciuuL languagos, with the design of pursuing a course of liberal culture. In 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 543 

the summer of 1S47 lie entered Brown University, and griiduatcd in 1851. Ho ranked first 
In liis class in mathematics, though history and metaphysics were his favorite studies. For 
nearly a year after graduating he pursued a course of English and classical literature. In 
the summer of 1852 he was tutor iu the family of Edgar lluidekoper, of Meadville, Pa. At 
tlie end of a year he accepted the principalsliip of the Meadville Academy. Here he organ- 
ized, in lSo3, a teachers' class, heforc which he delivered a course of lectures on the theory 
and practice of teaching, which course was continued until 1857. 

In 1857 Mr. Bates was chosen superinteudent for Crawford County. By a thorough exanii- 
natiou of teachers, a system of school visitation, and a practical course of instruction in the 
Teachers' Institutes, he infused new life into the three or four hundred schools which 
came under his charge, and by his labors in institutes in neighboring counties, assisted 
materially in establishing the popularity and usefulness of thfse meetings. 

In 1860 Mr. Bates accepted the office of Deputy State Superintendent. The degree of 
LL. D. was couierred by Westminster College in 18G5. 

In 1805 he was tendered the position of Vice-President of St. John's College, Annapolis, 
Md., but accepted instead, that of State Historian, tendered him by Gov. Curtin. He is now 
engaged upon a work entitled Lives of tlie Governors of Pennsylvania, in five parts. Part 
I, Period of Settlement; Part II, Proprietary Government ; Part III, Presidents of Supremo 
Executive Council; Part IV, Governors under the Constitution of 1790; Part V, Governors 
under the Constitution of 1838. He is also preparing a work embracing the general hiatory 
of the State during the war, with Lives of leading Pennsylvania officers. 

The following is a list of his book publications: History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 5 
vols., super royal octavo; Lives of the Governors of Pennsylvania, royal octavo; History of 
Pennsylvania in the late War, with Sketciies of Officers (in preparation); History and Present 
Condition of Colleges in Pennsylvania; History of State Teacliers' Association, and Sketch 
»f Education in Pennsylvania, royal octavo; E.xposition of School Laws of Peuiisylvania, 
8vo; Institute Lectures, Svo; Method of Teachers' Institutes, 8vo. 

Josi.\n R. Sypher, 1832 , is descended from a German family that emigrated to Penn- 
sylvania early in the eighteenth century, and settled in the valley of the Susquehanna. He 
was born on the homestead of his ancestors, in Perry County. He prepared for college ia 
tlie Alford Academy of Western New York, and graduated at Union College in the class of 
1858. After leaving college lie made a tour of the United States, travelling through all the 
States east of the Rocky Mountains. He entered the law office of Hon. Tliaddeus Stevens, 
and wa.s admitted to the bar at Lancaster, Pa., in 1862. During the time he was studying 
his profession he was associate editor of the Lancaster Express, a daily and weekly news- 
paper. His articles and letters when travelling, contributed to the Exjiress. attracted the 
attention of the publisher and editor of the Now York Tribune, and in the summer of 1S62 
he was engaged as a war correspondent of that paper. In tliis capacity he was during r, 
very important period of the war in charge of tlie correspondence in the Army of the Poto- 
mac. In the spring of 1861 he withdrew from the field to Washington and served the Tri- 
bune there until t!ie winter of 1S6.5, when he became a co-editor of the Tribune and removed 
to New York. In 1867 he removed to Philadelidiia to establish the Tribune office in that 
city, and remained in charge of the Tribunes business there until ho resigned in October, 
1870, to establish and manage a new paper. The Pennsylvania State Journal, at Harrisburg. 
Mr. Sypher ami the proprietors of the paj>er not agreeing as to the p.dicy of eximsing certain 
political frauds, he left the paper at the end of six months, and returned to the practice of 
his profession in Philadelphia. 

In the midst of this active life, Mr Syph.-r found time to p.-rform n<> inconsiderable 
amount of literary work out.side of his regular duties. In 1801 he wrote the History of the 
Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, a volume of over 700 octavo pages. He was from his boyhood 
an earnest and efficient advocate of public education, and coutributod greatly by his laU)i-8 



544 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

to the building up and expanding of the common-school system in his native State. In 1868 
he MTote A History of Pennsylvania, designed for a school-book ; and in 18G9, in connection 
with Ellis A. Apgar, he wrote a similar History of New Jersey. In 1870 he compiled The 
American Popular Speaker, and The Young American Speaker. He is now engaged in 
writing a History of the United States, which will be published in one large octavo volume. 
Mr. Sypher has also contributed many articles over his own signature to the Pennsylvania 
School Journal and the National Temperance Advocate, and anonymously to other publi- 
cations. He writes in a terse, clear, and forcible style, and is a fluent and graceful speaker. 

John Jacob Anderson, A.M., 1821 , was born in the city of New York, and received 

the rudiments of his education in the public schools there. After being prepared for college, 
he changed his plan and accepted a position as teacher. His career as an educator covers 
a period of more than a quarter of a century, twenty years of which he was at the head of 
one of the large public schools of the city of New York. 

He is the author of several works for schools and colleges, all of them in the direction of 
history. They are prepared with great care, and have been received with remarkable favor. 

Mr. Anderson received the honorary degree of A.M. from Rutgers College. 

The following is a list of his works : Introductory School History of the United States ; 
Common School History of the United States; Grammar School History of the United 
States; Pictorial School History of the United States; A Manual of General History; A 
School History of England ; The Historical Reader; The United States Reader. 



IX. WRITERS ON POLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Henry C. Carey. 

Henhy Charles Carey, 1793 , is the ablest, as well as the most 

voluminous, writer that we have on the subject of political economy. He 
is an earnest advocate of a protective tariff, and has devoted his energies to 
this cause with unflagging zeal for nearly forty years. 

Mr. Carey is son of Matthew Carey, and a successor to him in the book business. Mr. Carey 
retired from business in 1836, since which time he has devoted his leisure to writing on his 
favorite theme, political economy. His writings, which have been numerous, have been in 
advocacy of views on that subject, original with himself, and in advance of all that has been 
produced by European writers. He is regarded, by those competent to judge, the highest 
living authority in that field of inquiry. His principal works are the following : The Prin- 
ciples of Political Economy ; Essay on the Rate of Wages ; The Credit System in France, 
Great Britain, and the United States ; The Past, The Present, and the Future ; The Harmony 
of Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial ; The Principles of Social Science ; 
The Slave-Trade ; Letters on the Currency ; Letters on International Copyright, etc., etc. 
•'One of the strongest and most original writers of the age." — Westminster Review. "Mr. 
Carey has clearly substantiated his claim to be the leading writer now devoted to the study 
of political economy." — N. York Quarterly. His writings have been translated into most 
of the languages of Europe, and have been made the basis of instruction in many of the 
foreign universities. 

FuRMAN Shepp.vrd, 1823 , an eminent lawyer of Philadelphia, was born in Cumberland 

County, N. J. He has written The Constitutional Text-Book ; The First Book of the Con- 
Btitution ; and some law books. 



FHOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 545 

Edward Jot Morris, 1817 , is a native of Pliiladelphia, and a gradnatc of ITarTanl, 

1836. He -was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and afterwards of the National 
Congress. He has spent most time abroad, and in 1861 was sent as United States ambas- 
sador to Turkey. He has given much time to literature. His chief publications are the fol- 
lowing: Notes of a Tour through Turkey, Germany,Greece, Egypt, Arabia Petraea, etc. ; Tlic 
Turkish Empire, its History, Political and Religious, Conditions, Manners. Customs, etc., 
translated from the German ; Afi-aja, or Life and Love in Norway, translated from the Ger- 
man ; Corsica, Social and Political, translated from the German, etc. 

James Watson Webb, 1802 , was bom at Claverick, N. Y. He was an oflRcer in the 

United States Army from 1819 to 1827, and he is genenilly called '•Col. Webb." As editor 
of the New York Courier and Inquirer, from 1827 to 1861, a period of thirty-four years, he 
became widely known. Until the rise of the Herald, Tribune, and other papers of that class, 
the Courier and Inquirer was the leading paper in New York, probably in the United States, 
and wielded a large influence. Besides his paper. Col. Webb published Slavery and its Ten- 
dencies; Altowan, or Incidents of Life and Adventures in the Rocky Mountains. He was 
appointed Minister to Bi-azilin 1861, and returned in 1870. 

Charles Francis Adams, 1807 , son of John Quiucy Adams, and gradnate of Harvard, 

Mr. Adams took a conspicuous part in our foreign diplomacy during the late war, being the 
American minister in London at that time, and conducting the corre-spondence with the British 
Government during several very critical years. In addition to his labors as a diplomatist, 
he has done good service to the cause of letters by editing The Letters of Mrs. Abigail Ad- 
ams, Tlie Life and Works of John Adams, 10 vols. ; and Letters of John Adams to his Wife, 
2 vols. All these important works have been executed in a manner that has given universal 
satisfaction. It is understood that he is preparing in like manner a complete edition of the 
■works of his father, John Quincy Adams. 



Charles Sumner. 

Charles Su^hner, LL. D., 1811 , for many years a leading senator 

of the United States, is distinguished as a political orator. His Orations, 
chiefly on political topics, fill eight large volumes. 

Mr. Sumner is a native of Boston. After passing through the Boston Latin School and 
Harvard University, 1S30, he became a pupil of Judge Story in the Law School, and reporter 
for the judge in tliat circuit. From 18:37 to 1840 he travelled extensively in Europe. In 
1845 he attracted public attention by his celebrated oration on The True Grandeur of Na- 
tions. This was the era of the troubles between the United States and Mexico in relation to 
Texas, and Sumner's speech was an argument in favor of peace. From this time Sumner 
devoted himself exclusively to politics. 

In 1851 he succeeded Daniel Webster as senator from Massachusetts, a position which he 
still retains. As senator Mr. Sumner soon distinguished himself as an earnest and fearless 
opponent of the growing power of the pro-slavery party. In May, 1856, he made his cele- 
brated speech on Kansas. Some remarks, bearing nithcr severely on Senator Butler of 
South Carolina, gave offence to Butler's nephew, Preston S. Brooks, then representative 
from that State. Mr. Brooks's a.'isault ui)on Sumner in the Senate Chamber, the lat- 
ter's disablement for public service, Brooks's expulsion from the House and subsequent 
re-election, the projected duel between Brooks and Burlingame, are all too well kni>wn to 
call for repetition here. Sumner himself left the country to travel in Europe in quest of 
health. In 1857, on the expiration of his term, he was re-elected by the State Legislature 
by an almost unanimous vote. His health was not sufficiently restored, however, until the 
46* 2K 



546 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

end of 1859, so that his seat remained unoccupied for three years. " The eloquent vacant 
chair " became proverbial. 

In 1860, not long after his return, Sumner delivered his speech, even more bitter and un- 
sparing, on "The Barbarism of Slaverj'." But the times had changed. The contest was 
coming, rapidly to an issue, and evidently would have to be fought out with other weapons 
than speeches and canes. 

Sumner was active in procuring the election of Lincoln and unwavering in support of the 
war. lie was the author of many of the most important war and reconstruction measures, 
among them the Freedmen's Bureau Bill. In 1861 he was appointed Chairman of the Com- 
inittee on Foreign Relations, and retained that important office during the war and up to 
1S71, when he took issue with President Grant on the San Domingo expedition. 

Mr. Sumner was for years the acknowledged leader of the Republican i>arty iu the United 
States Senate. The energy of his character and the prestige of his learning and eloquence 
were largely instrumental in making that party what it was. He was regarded not merely 
as Webster's successor, but as the man upon whom the largest share of Webster's mantle 
had fallen; and whenever he was announced to deliver a great speech, the galleries and 
floor of the Senate chamber were thronged as they had been in the days of Clay, Webster, 
and Calhoun. 

Great as Mr. Sumner's abilities undoubtedly are, it may be questioned whether a good 
share of his reputation is not due to circumstances, whether the senator would have risen 
to the first rank but for his temporary martyrdom. His speeches, which have been col- 
lected and published, in 1870, in 8 vols., evince great learning and great fidelity in collecting 
authorities. Their style is elegant to a fault. But they do not abound in such brilliant, 
stirring eloquence as Webster's, they do not reveal the same depth and grasp of intellect. 
But whatever be their defects, they will still remain as a model of good English, nor will it 
ever be forgotten by posterity' that the orator's voice was not silent in times when it cost 
Bometlung to be brave and free of speech. 

George Sumnee, 1817-1863, was a younger brother of the senator, and, like him, born in 
Boston. George Sumner's education was prosecuted abroad. He resided abroad for many 
years, travelling in Europe, Asia, and Africa. His special study was that of international 
law and a comparison of the laws and institutions of different countries. His ability and 
research were well known in Europe, better known, in fact, than in his native country. He 
was associated with Dr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, in establishing in America the first schools 
for the training of idiots. He is the author of numerous contributions scattered over the 
pages of The North American Review, Democratic Review, and many German and French 
periodicals. In 1815 he published an address delivered at Cambridge entitled ^lemoirs of 
the Pilgrims at Leyden, and, in 1847, a pamphlet on the successful introduction of the 
Pennsylvania system of prison discipline into Europe. In the course of the winter of 
1860-61, he delivered a course of lectures in the i^rincipal cities of the United States. 

Wendell Phillips. 

Wendell Phillips, ISll , has figured largely as an orator, first 

as an anti-slavery advocate, and since the war as an advocate of labor 
reform, and women's rights. He has also a high reputation as a public 
lecturer on topics connected with literature and art. 

Mr. Phillips is a native of Boston, and a graduate of Harvard, 1831. He studied law and 
was admitted to the bar, but declined practising, because it obliged him as an attornej' to 
swear to support the Constitution of the United States, which was incompatible with his 
extreme anti-slavcry views. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 547 

■Wendell Phillips's fame is that of an orator rather than that of a writer. At least, his 
ppcotlu'.s, able as they are, owe much of their force to his wonderful delivery. As a Hpeaker, 
he occupies the very first rank. Many jn(l<;cs, indeed, rank him above all other Anierlean 
orators in vuice, delivery, purjional magnetism, and all that constitutes the power of a public 
speaker. Certainly no one has had more need of his oratorical gifts. Year after year did 
he toil on in the cause of emancipation, in the face of unpopularity, abuse, personal vio- 
lence, and threats of assassination, yet rarely, if ever, has he failed to hold even the most 
antipathetic audience spell-bound by the charm of his eloquence. 

Of late years he has degenerated, it must be confessed, into the ungracious role of a con- 
firmed grumbler. When negro slavery was formally abolished, his occupation, like Othello's, 
■was gone, and there was nothing flagrant for him to attack. Yet he appears from time to 
time denouncing unsparingly political measures and jiolitical men, and alienating from 
himself his warmest friends and admirers by his reckless transgression of the bounds of 
practical sense. 

It is difficult to express arsy opinion as to the comparative merits of his numerous speeches. 
Perhaps ttie most famous was the one delivered in Faneuil Ilall, 1S37, at a meeting called to 
protest against the murder of Lovejoy in Illinois. Phillips was then only twentj'-six years 
old. Dr. Channing pronounced the oration " morally sublime." Besides his Orations, pub- 
lished in 1SG3, he has contributed various articles to the anti-slavery and temperance 
journals. 

Charles Lanman. 

Charles Laxman, 1819 , has written largely on political and other 

topics, his mo?t elaborate work being a Dictionary of Congre.-:s, a very use- 
ful book of reference, published by authority of the general government. 

Mr. Lanman was born in Monroe, Mich. He received an academical education at Plain- 
field, Conn.; was a clerk in the famous Indian house of Suydam, Jackson & Co., New York, 
from 1835 to 1845, when he revisited his birth-place, and for a few months edited the Monroe 
Gazette. In 184G he became associate editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle; and, after making 
a canoe tour up the Mississippi river and through Lr.ke Superior, he returned to New York, 
and was associated as a writer with the Daily E.vpress. In 1848 he visited Washington, and 
became a writer and travelling correspondent of the National Intelligencer; and while 
residing in Georgetown, D. C, continued in the service of that journal, until the death of its 
editors, Gales and Seaton. 

As an amateur, he paid some attention to landscape painting; was elected an Associate 
of the National Academy of Design; and he inaugurated the custom, in the New York Ex- 
press, of printing elaborate criticism on art. During his connection with the Intelligencer 
he made an annual tour among the wilds of the United States and Canada, for the triple 
ptu-pose of hunting the picturesque, gratifying his love of angling, and describing his 
adventures. 

In 1849 he was appointed Librarian of the War Department, and as such, under President 
Fillmore, organi7ed the library in the Executive Mansion; was subsequently appointed 
Librarian of Copyrights in the State Department, and Private Secretary of Daniel Webster; 
Librarian of the Interior Department ; Librarian of the House of Representatives ; and lastly, 
was placed m charge of the Returns Office in the Interior Department. 

Desiiles writing for periodicals at homo, he became, in 1857, the American Correspondent 
of the IlluKtrated London News, in which he published many illustrations of American 
Bceneiy, and in l^G'J he corresponded for the London Athenaeum, lie also furnished Apple- 
ton's Journal with a series of Sketches of American Scenery. 

In 1871 he was engaged by the Japanese Government to write a work on Social Life in 
America, to bo traimluted by the Resident Minister fur publication in Japan; and on sub- 



548 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

mitting his design and the first chapter of the work, vcas invited to become the American 
Secretary of the Japanese Legation at "Washington, Avhich position he accepted. 

Mr. Lanman lias published the following yolumes: Essays for Summer Hours; A Summer 
in the "Wildei-ness; A Tour to the River Saguenay, republished in England; Letters from the 
Alleghany Mountains ; Occasional Records of a Tourist ; Private Life of Daniel Webster, 
republished in England; A Tour to tlie River Restigouche, and a Winter in the South; 
Adventures in the Wilds of America; Life of William Woodbndge ; the Red Book of Michigan. 

It is understood that his uncollected essays will hereafter be published in several volumes, 
under the titles of Novelties of American Character; Essays of An Angler; Imaginary Let- 
ters; and Ilap-llazard Papers. 

AVashington Irving designated Mr. Lanman as "the Picturesque Explorer of the Country;" 
Charles Dickens said of his writings that their charm was their realness,and that he obsei'ved 
accurately, and described with spirit and intelligence ; W^illiam Jerdan said that he was one 
of the most pleasant sketchers who had followed in the footsteps of The Sketch Book; the 
North American Review, that his letters have many graphic touches which show the artist- 
eye of their ingenious author, and also that at times a striking poetical expression flashes 
out, illuminating the page like a gleam of light ; the London Athenajum, that he painted the 
wilderness with vivid colors, but rendered, at the same time, express homage to civilization. 

The pictures painted by Mr. Lanman number several hundred, and all of them are illus- 
trations of American scenery. 



Alexander H. Stephens. 

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, 1812 , of Georgia, was Vice- 
President of the late Confederacy, and one of its ablest and most persistent 
advocates. As a political writer, Mr. Stephens has always commanded 
respect, even from those most opposed to his views. 

Mr. Stephens was born in Taliaferro County, Ga., and graduated at Franklin College, in 
Athens, of the same State, in the class of 1832. He studied law and had a lucrative practice. 
In 183G, he entered political life, being elected to the State Legislature, and from that time 
onvva,rd his attention lias been almost exclusively given to public affairs. He was elected to 
Congress in 1843, and took at once an active part in national questions, until the outbreak 
of tlie Civil War in 1861, when he joined his fortunes to the Southern Confederacy and 
became its Vice-President. Mr. Stephens has occupied his leisure, since the downfall of the 
Confederacy, in writing its story : A History of the War between the States, Tracing its 
Origin, Causes, and Results ; A Constitutional Yiew of the Late War between the States. 

Geokge FiTznuon, , a prominent lawyer of Richmond, has written two remark- 
able works on social science ; Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society, 1854 ; 
and Cannibals All, or Slaves without Masters. "Sociology is a unique book, sagacious, 
but eccentric and discursive, bold and novel, and in an eminent degree suggestive. It is 
extremist, but full of original and living thought, — no rehash of former speculations." — J. 
Wood Davidson. Mr. Fitzhugh claims that slavery is the natural and rightful condition of 
society, and that any system of society not based upon slavery tends to cannibalism. He 
does not base his argument upon the inferiority of blacks, but thinks that the laboring 
classes of mankind, irrespective of color, should bo slaves. 

Henry Middleton, 1797 , though born in Paris, is a Charlestonian, son of tlie late 

Governor Middleton, of South Carolina. Henry was educated at West Point, graduating in 
1815. He continued his studies afterward in Edinburgh, and was admitted to the bar in 
Charleston in 1822, but never practised. He has published the following works : The 



FKOM 1850 TO TUE PRESENT TIME. 549 

Government and the Currency; Economical Causes of Slavery in the United States; Tho 
Government of India, as it Has Been, as it Is, and as it ought to Be ; Universal Suflfragc. 

"William II. Trescott, 1823 , of Charleston, S. C, Las made several valuable contribu- 
tions to political history: Diplomacy of the Revolution; Letters on the Diplomatic System 
of the United States ; Diplomatic History of the Administration of Washington. 

Hinton Rowan Helper. 

HiNTOx Rowan Helper, 1829 , of North Carolina, acquired a 

painful notoriety, before and during the war, by the publication of a book, 
called The Impending Crisis of the South, of "which more than 140,000 
copies were sold. 

Mr. Helper was born and educated in Rowan County, N. C. His education was limited to 
the English branches. In 1851, he went to California by way of Cape Horn, and spent nearly 
three yenrs on the Pacific coast, and on his return in 1S55 published an account of his 
Travels, The Land of Gold. In 1857, he published the work which gave him such notoriety, 
The Impending Crisis. In 1861, he was appointed United States Consul to Buenos Ayres, 
where, in 1863, he married a Spanish lady, Maria Louisa Rodriguez, who had been educated 
in one of the French-English schools in New York city. In 1867, he resigned his positioQ 
and returned home, settling in Asheville. N. C, where he now lives. 

In 1F67. Mr. Helper published his third book, Nojoque, a Question for a Continent. The 
object of this book was to correct the impression derived from the Impending Crisis, that he 
was the friend of the negro. lie wishes the world to know that, in writing against slavery 
and slaveholders, he had not written in the interest of the negro race. On the contrary, he 
wishes them exterminated. "Were I to state here, frankly and categorically, that the 
primary object of this work is to write the negro out of America, and that the secondary 
object is to write him (and manifold millions of other blacks and bi-colored caitiffs little 
better than himself) out of existence, God's simple truth would be told." — Preface. 

In 1SG8, Mr. Helper published another work in the same vein. The Negroes in Negroland, 
the Negroes in America, and Negroes Generally. 

Mr. Helper writes with a reckless vigor that insures him readers, though it gives one little 
confidence in his opinions. " His views are iconoclastic and his spirit destructive. lie 
praises and blames without reserve, and without measure. He treads upon toes without 
begging pardon. There is, however, a manliness in this outspoken and fearless advocacy, 
that entitles the advocate to a measure of respect, even from those who take issue with 
every position he fights for." — J. Wood Davidson. 



X. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS. 

Agassiz. 

Louis John Rudolph Agassiz, 1807 , though pre-eminent as a 

scientist, has not thought it beneath his aim to ui^e the arts of rhetoric in 
commending his favorite studies to the attention of unlearned readers. Few 
even of our professed literary men excel him in the matter of writing g0(xl 
English, 

Prof. Agassiz was bom in Switzerland, and studied at various European universities. He 
la chiefly known as a man of science, his investigations and discoveries in the natural sciences 



550 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

having placed him in this respect among the foremost men of all time. His pnl-lications 
are exceedingly numerous, and among them. are several of a popular cast, written in the 
purest English, and giving him a legitimate and honorable place in the department of liter- 
ature. He came to the United States in 1S46, and soon after was appointed Professor of 
Zoology and Geology in the Lawrence Scientific School, in Cambridge, Mass., a position 
which he still holds. So far as he has a place in letters, it is as an American, most of his 
scientific and nearly all his literary activity having been put forth in this, the land of his 
adoption. His contributions to the Atlantic Monthly, afterwards reprinted in a volnme 
under the title of Methods of Study in Natural History, are, in mere attractions of style and 
language, as fascinating as a work of romance. The same may be said of his volume on 
The Structure of Animal Life, being a course of lectures delivered before the Brooklyn Insti- 
tute, to illustrate the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in his works. "In 
the operation of his mind there is no predominance of any single power, but the intellectual 
action of what we feel to be a powerful nature. "When he observes, his whole mind enters 
into the act of observations ; just as, when he reasons, his whole mind enters into the act 
of reasoning. ... He is not merely a scientific thinker ; he is a scientific force ; and no small 
portion of the immense influence he exerts is due to the energy, intensity, and geniality 
which distinguish the nature of the man. In personal intercourse he inspires as well as in- 
forms, communicates not only knowledge, but the love of knowledge, ... He is at once one 
of the most dominating and one of the most sj'mpathetic of men, having the qualities of 
leader and companion combined in singular harmony." — Whipple. 

Mrs. Louis Agassiz, wife of the preceding, has made several contributions to American 
letters. She accompanied her husband in his scientific expedition to Brazil, and published 
a volume, entitled A Journey in Brazil, containing in the form of a diary a popular account 
of the expedition and its results. The work is the joint product of the Professor and his 
wife, the material being supplied or suggested by him, and the comiwsition being hers. A 
similar joint production of Mrs. Agassiz and their sou, Mr. Aloxauder Agassiz, forms an 
interesting volume called Sea-side Studies. 

Isaac Lea, LL. D., 1792 , is a native of TVilmington, Del., but has spent nearly all his 

life in Philadelphia. He married a daughter of the celebrated publisher and writer, Matthew 
Carey, and in 1821 became a partner of Mr. Carey's, and i-etired from it in 1851 and devoted 
his time to natural history pursuits. In 1859, he was elected President of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia. 

Mr. Lea, like Grote the English banker and historian, is an instance in proof that a mau 
of business need not be cut off from the cultivation of letters or of science. During all the 
time that Mr. Lea, by a zealous and methodical attention to business, was accumulating a 
fortune, he maintained his hours of private study, and rose by degrees to be one of the most 
eminent naturalists in the country. His contributions to natural science, beginning as far 
back as 1818, and continuing in almost unbroken series down to the present time, and 
amounting to more than one hundred and fifty, are found mainly in the Transactions of the 
American Philosophical Society, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, and 
in Silliman's Journal. His principal work. Observations on the Family Unionidas, Melanidae, 
etc., con.sists of 12 vols., 4to, with illustrations of nearly 1500 new species. lie is now en- 
gaged on the 1:3th voL His Contribution^ to Geology has 228 new fossil species. The fourth 
edition of his Synopsis of the Family Unionidae, in 4to, is a most laborious work, and gives a 
history of the whole subject from the time of Pliny to the present period. 

Besides these purely scientific works, Mr. Lea has published several essays of a more popu- 
lar character. Among these, the following may be named : On tlie Pleasure and Advantage 
of Studying Natural History; A Sketch of the History of Miueralojjy; An Essay ou the 
Iforthwest Passage ; Ou Uibernation, etc 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 551 

Samuel D. Gross, LL.D., 1805 , ia a native of Pennsylvania, born near Easton. lie 

has been for many years Professor of Surgery in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadeliihia. 
Besides numerous works of a strictly professional character, he has published An American 
Medical Biography, suited to general reading. 

Alexander Wixchell, LL.D., 1824 , President of the Methodist University at Syra- 
cuse, and lately Professor of Geology, etc.. in the University of Michigan, was born iu 
Dutchess County, N. Y., and graduated at the ^Vesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., in 
the class of 1S47. He has published Sketches of Creation, a popular view of some of the 
grand conclusions of the sciences in refcnnce to the history of matter and life, together 
with a st^itement of the primeval condition and the ultimate destiny of the earth and the 
sular system ; also several important Reports iu regard to the Geology of Michigan. 

Dr. Dickson. 

Samuel Henry Dicksox, M. D., 1798-1872, combined in a high degree 
literary tastes and culture with eminence in a scientific profession. His 
contributions to popular literature, though not large, were yet considerable 
in amount, and were uniformly of a high order. 

Dr. Dickson was a native of Charleston, S. C, smd a graduate of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, lie was Professor, first in the Medical Department of the University of New York, 
then in the Medical College of South Carolina, and from 1858 to the time of his death, in tlie 
Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. Besides his strictly professional works, which 
are in high repute, he wrote on literary and current topics, and on several of those subjects 
which are on tlie border-land between the public domain and the domain of pure science. 
The following are the chief: Essays on Life, Sleep, Pain, etc.; On the Correlation of Forces ; 
On Memory; On Pleasure; Essays on Slavery ; Orations and Addresses ; The Esthetics of 
Suicide; Elements of Medicine, etc. 

Dr. Dickson cultivated polite letters ftir more than is customary with gentlemen of the 
medical profession. Few, among those who have devoted themselves e.xclusively to a liter- 
ary life, are so well read in English literature ; few hold a more facile or graceful pen. " Dr. 
Dickson is one of the most classically elegant writers upon medical sciences in the United 
States. lie ranks with Chapman and Oliver Wendell Holmes iu the gi-ace of his periods, as 
well as in the thoroughness of his learning, and the exactness and acuteness of his logic. 
Like Ilolmes, too, he is a poet, and generally a very accomplished lUeraUur.'^ — Inter-natiunal 
JUiif/uzine. 

John W. Drapkr. M. D., 1811 , is a native of England, but a resident of the United 

States. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, and became Professor of Chemistry 
in the University of New York. Works: Text-Book on Chemistry; Natural Philosophy; 
Human Physiology; History of the Intellectual Condition of Europe; The Future Civil 
Policy of America; History of the American Civil War. He has also contributed to the 
journals of science. Dr. Draper's works are considered of the highest authority uu the 
several subjects of which he has treated. 

Asa Gray, M.D., tS'.O , the distinguished Professor of Natural History at Cambridge, 

was born at Paris, Oneida County, N. Y. He has devoted himself almost exclusively to the 
science of botany, and while pursuing original investigations, interesting only to men of 
science, has not neglected the wants of the common mind. His series of elementary text- 
books are of the highest value, aud connect him to sonu* extent with popular liter.kture. 
The following are the publications named iu this couuectiua: Uuw Pluuts Uruw ; Lussuus 
in Botany ; Manual of Botany, etc. 



652 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

James Dwight Dana, LL.D., 1813, Professor of Geology and Natural History in Tale Col- 
lege, was born in Utica, N. Y. He graduated at Yale in 1833, became Assistant Professor in 
1836, and succeeded Professor Silliman in 1855. He was Mineralogist and Geologist to the 
United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes, in 1838, and superintended the scientific 
portion of the reports, filling four large 4to "vols. His contributions to science, which have 
been numerous, have been published for the most part in the American Journal of Science 
and Arts, of which he is the editor. He has published two works, which have been exten- 
sively used as text-books : A Manual of Mineralogy, and A Treatise on Mineralogy. 

V Raphael Pumpellt, 1837 , Professor of Mining Engineering in Harvard University, 

was born at Owego, N. Y. He studied seven years in Europe, viz., three years at the Royal 
Mining Academy at Freiburg, Saxony, and the rest at Hanover and Paris. In 1860.he began 
a journey around the world across the continents of North America, Asia, and Europe, 
which occupied five years. The first year was spent in Arizona and Northern Mexico and 
California. Thence he went to Japan, under commission from the Emperor to examine the 
island of Yesso, and remained there one and a half years. He then passed one and a half 
years in studying the geology of the interior of China and Central Asia, a part of the time 
under commission from the Emperor of China. He was thus enabled, among other things, to 
be the first to bring to the knowledge of the world the fact that China is second to no other 
country, except perhaps the United States, in the extent and quality of her vast coal-fields. 
From China he returned through Tartary, Siberia, and Europe, to America. 

He was elected Professor of Mining Engineering in Harvard University in 1866, which 
chair he still holds. 

He undertook the State Geological Survey of the Copper Districts of Lake Superior in 
1870, and -was appointed in 1871 Director of the Geological Survey of Missouri. 

The following are his two principal publications : Geological Researches in China, Mon- 
golia, and Japan, illustrated, 4to ; Across America and Asia, Notes of a Five Years' Journey 
around the World and of Residence in Arizona, Japan, and China, illustrated. 

He has contributed several editorials on Asiatic subjects to The Nation ; also several 
articles of a popular character to the magazines, besides numerous papers to scientific 
journals. 

Com. Maury. 

Matthew Fontaine Maury, LL. D., 1806 , an eminent physi- 
cist, is known throughout the civilized world by his Wind and Current 
Charts, and his Physical Geography of the Sea. 

Com. Maury was born in Spottsylvania County, Va. He moved in 1810 to Tennessee ; 
entered the naval service of the United States in 1825. After fifteen years of active service, 
meeting with an accident which disabled him from duty afloat, he was stationed at Wash- 
ington and put in charge of the books, charts, and instruments collected by the government. 
This depot became in time the Ilydrographical Oflfice, and afterwards was united with the 
Naval Observatory, Maury being put in charge of the whole. 

In this position Maury achieved the great work of his life, a work brilliant as a contribu- 
tion to science, and valuable beyond computation to the practical necessities of commerce. 
He began this work in 1842. He matured a system of uniform observations of winds, cur- 
rents, and other meteorological phenomena at sea. Model log-books were distributed to 
commanders of vessels, both in the naval and the merchant marine. System was enforced 
in all entries of observations, and abstract returns were forwarded to the department. In nine 
years two hundred large manuscript volumes were collected. In 1S53, through his exertions, 
a general Maritime Conference Wiis held at Brussels, by whose recommendation other nations 
were induced to adopt the system. The immense mass of observations thua collected were 



i 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 653 

reduced, and the results formulated into scientific propositions and practical sailing direct 
tions. The benefits both to science and to commerce have been incalculable. 

Com. Maury's publications have been the following : The Piiysical Geography of the Sea; 
Wind and Current Charts; Sailing Directions ; A Series of School Geographies, consisting of 
First Lessons in Geography, A Manual of Geography, and Physical Geography ; A Treatise 
on Navigation ; Scraps from the Lucky Boy ; and a largo number of addresses and of con- 
tributions to periodical literature. 

"When the war broke out, Mr. Manry entered the service of the Confederacy. At the close 
of the war he went to Mexico and took office under the Emperor Maximilian. On the down- 
fall of the empire he returned to the United States, and became in 1868 Professor in the 
Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington, and in 1S71, President of the University of 
Alabama. 

Ephr.^^im George Sqoiek, 1821 , is a native of New York State. He began life as a 

school-teacher and engineer, and edited several scientific journals. While living in Ohio hia 
attention was interested in the Indian remains in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. The 
results of his explorations were published in 1848 by the Smithsonian Institution, under the 
heading Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. In 1849 appeared The Aboriginal 
Monuments of the State of New York. Since that time Mr. Squier has explored on different 
occasions Mexico and Central Asia, and also Peru, and published numerous important 
works on the antiquities and physical aspects of those countries. Among these works are. 
The Serpent Symbol, Nicaragua, Notes on Central America, Waikna, or Adventures on the 
Mosquito Shores, etc. Besides these, Mr. Squier has made numerous contributions to the 
magazines and to ethnological journals, and has delivered many lectures upon his travels. 
He has also begun a Collection of Pvare and Original Documents concerning the Discovery 
and Conquest of America, and announced a work on Mexican Hieroglyphics. Mr. Squier 
stands in the foremost rank of American travellers. The importance of his discoveries can 
be estimated only by archasologists and ethnologists. The style of his publications, how- 
ever, is not so attractive. It is wanting in freshness and vigor. 

John Brockelsbt, 1811 , Professor of Mathematics in Trinity College, Hartford, is the 

author of several valuable school-books : Elements of Meteorology ; View of the Microscopic 
World; Elements of Astronomy; Common School Astronomy ; Elements of Physiology. 

William James Rolfe, 1827 , was born in Newburyport, Mass., and graduated at 

Amherst, 1849. lie taught Day's Academy, Wrentham, Mass., from 1850 to 1852 ; was Ilead- 
Master of Dorchester High School (Mass.), from lS-)2 to 1856; of Lawrence High School 
(Miiss.), from 1856 to 1800; of Salem High Scliool (Mass.), in ISGl; and of Cambridge High 
School from 1861 to 18C8. Since that time he has been engaged in book-making and editing 
(Boston Journal of Chemistry, etc.). He is still a resident of Cambridge, Mass. 

The following are his publications: Handbook of Latin Poetry, edited in connection with 
J. U. Hanson; Cambridge Course of Physics (six volumes of Natural Philosophy, Chemis- 
try, and Astronomy), edited in connection with J. A. Gillet; Craik's English of Shakespeare, 
edited, with additional notes, etc.; Editions of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, The 
Tempest, Henry the Eighth, Julius Ca.'sar. (The series to be continued.) 

John Johnston. LL. D., 1806 , the veteran Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chem- 
istry in the Wesleyan University, Middlotown, Conn., was born in Bristol Township. Lincoln 
County, Me., and liegan life as a farmer. He graduated at Bowdoiu in 1S32, and after various 
appointments elsewhere, became Professor in tlie Wesleyan University in ls:}5, which posi- 
tion he hiis held ever since. Prof. Johnston, besides numerous articles in the scientific and 
the religious journals, has published Elements of Natural Philosophy, and Elomenls of 
Chemistry. He began by editing Turner's Chemistry, but in the various revisions and addi- 
tions, the work became substantially his own. 

47 



551 AMERICAN LITERATUKE. 

Le Rot C. Coolet, Ph. D., 1833 , -was born in the town of Lyme, Jefferson Conntj', N. Y, 

His father was a farmer, one of the early settlers of tliat town. Le Roy liad in boyhood the 
ordinary adyantages of the common school and the more valuable influences of pioi>s parents. 
He began early to love books and study, rather than the implements and labor of the farm. 
His parents, unable to help him pecuniarily to the higher education so much desired, bade 
him, at the age of sixteen years, go out into tiie world and get what he could. By tenching 
school in winter he was able to attend the academy in summer. He entered the New York 
State Normal School in the autumn of 1854, graduated in 1805, at the end of a single term, 
or half year. He immediately began teaching Natural Science in the Lockport Union 
School. "V\ hile in that position, he was able to pursue by himself his course of study, until 
prepared for advanced standing in College. He graduated at Union in 1858, and was called 
at once to the department of Mathematics in the Fairfield Seminary, N. Y. ; thence, in 1860, 
to the department of Natural Sciences in Cooperstown Seminary, N. Y. ; and thence, in 1861, 
to his present position — the chair of Natural Sciences in the New York State Normal School, 
at Albany. Prof Cooiey has been for several years a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian 
Church of Albany. 

Besides contributions to the scientific journals. Prof Cooiey has published the following 
works: Experiments in Physical Science; Elements of Natural Philosophy; Text-Book of 
Natural Philosophy ; Text-Book of Chemistry; Hand-Book of Apparatus and Experiments. 



J. Dorman Steele. 

Prof. J. Dorman Steele, A.M., Ph. D., 1836 , is one of the pro- 
gressive men among our younger class of teachers. He has acquired a high 
reputation as a teacher, and his series of Short Courses in several of the 
sciences are a marked feature among our latest school-book publications. 

Prof. Steele was bom at Lima, N. Y. He graduated at Genesee College in 1858. After 
teaching natural science successfully in various schools, and an honorable service in McClel- 
lan's Peninsular campaign, he became, in 1866, Principal of the Free Academy, at Elmii-a, 
N. Y., which position he still adorns. 

Prof. Steele's " Short Courses " grew out of his own wants in the class-room. The follow- 
ing is the list: Fourteen Weeks in Natural Philosophy; do. in Chemistry; do. in Astron- 
omy; do. in Geology; do. in Physiology. 

Prof. Steele is not a mere compiler, but writes out of the abundant fulness of his own 
mind. He can, too, when occasion calls for it, like Tyudall and Agassiz, enliven the 
most abstruse speculations with the graces of rhetoric. Witness the following, from an 
article of his on Force : "Potential force is one that is concealed, lying in wait, and ready to 
burst forth on the instant. It is a loaded gun prepared for the use of the marksman. It 
is the sword of Damocles suspended by a hair. It is the river trembling on the brink of a 
precipice, ready to take the fearful leap. It is the giant, tlie Farnese Hercules leaning on 
his club, — passive, yet ready for action, — every muscle relaxed, but only waiting the word 
of command. It is stored-up energy; the gold lying in the vault, full of power, but with- 
drawn from active circulation and use. It is a weight woundup, full of potential force — 
the strong pull of the cord — ready but not able to fall. Dynamic force is not latent or 
concealed, but force in full view, in actual operation. The hair is cut, tUe sword is striking, 
the bullet is speeding to the mark, the river is tumbling, the giant is in action, the gold is 
in circulation, and the weight is falling. It is heat radiating from our fires, electricity 
flashing our messages across the continent, or gravity pulling bodies head-long to the earth." 

Sanborn Tenney, A. M., 1827 , Professor of Natural History in Williams College, Mass., 

was born in Stoddard, N. 11., and graduated at Amherst in 1853. Immediately after grad- 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 555 

nation lie became instructor in Natural History iu the New England Naval Institution at 
Lancaster, Mtuss. He afterwards studied under Agassiz, and in I806 became Lecturer on 
Natural History in the Massacliusetts State Teachers' Institutes, which position he iield for 
nine yeai-s. During this time he lectured on his department in many parts of New Enghmd 
and in Pennsylvania. He was Professor at Vassar College from its organization to 1S68. In 
1863 he entered the position which he still holds, in AVilliams College. Professor Tenney 
stands among the best writers of text-books on the subjects which he discusses. The 
following are his works, all designed as text-books : Geology ; Manual of Zoology ; Natural 
History of Animals, for beginners; Natural History Tablets; Elements of Zoology. Pro- 
fessor Tenney is engaged to deliver before the Lowell Institute, in 1873, a course of lec- 
tures on Physical Structure and Natural Resources. — Mrs. Saxborn Tenney, , wife 

of the preceding, has written Pictures and Stories of Animals for the Little Ones at Home, 
6 vols. 

Sidney A. Norton, 1835 , Professor of Chemistry in the Miami Medical College, has 

published Elements of Natural Philosophy, and has in preparation a text-book on Ciiemistry, 
and a Manual of Physics. Prof. Norton was born in Bloomfield, 0., and graduated at Union, 
in 1858. He taught at various places, — Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and Hamilton, Cleveland, and 
Cincinnati, 0., — before taking his present chair. He spent eighteen months iu European 
study, at Bonn, Leipsic, and Heidelberg. 

John C. Dalton, M.D., 1825 , a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard, 

has distinguished himself as a physiologist. He has published a Treatise on Physiology and 
Hygiene for schools, etc. 

Rev. Henry J. Osborn, , was born in Philadelphia, and graduated at the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. He pursued scientific studies at the Polytechnic School in London, 
and also in Germany, and made a topographical and geological survey of the Holy Land. 
After preaching in various places, and being connected as an instructor with various insti- 
tutions, among them Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa., he became Professor of the Scientific 
department in Miami University, 0. His published works are the following: Palestine, 
Past and Present; Plants of the Holy Land; Little Pilgrims in the Holy Land; A Large 
Map of Palestine; The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel. 

David A. Wells, 1827 , was born in Springfield. Mass. He graduated at "Williams 

College, in the class of 1847 ; studied at the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, and 
afterwards, 1851-52, was Assistant Professor thei'e. From 1866 to 1870, lie was Special Com- 
missioner of the Revenue, and in that capacity wrote several elaborate Reports. His other 
publications are : Annual of Scientific Discover}', 16 vols.; Familiar Science; Science of 
Common Things; Elements of Natural Philosophy ; Principles of Chemistry ; Principles of 
Geology, etc. 

MiLLiAM II. Weixs, a. M., 1812 , was born in Tolland, Conn. He was Principal of the 

Putnam Free School, at Newburyport, Mass., 1S48-1854, and of the State Normal School, 
Westfield, Mass., 1854-1 8.')G, and Superintendent of the public schools of Chicago, 1856-1864. 
His .services in all these positions were highly esteemed, but the superior emoluments of a 
business life called him away, in 1864, from a profession of which he was one of the highest 
ornaments. The public authorities, in fixing the rates of compensation for teachers, would 
do well to remember that the profession is thus constantly losing the best and most desir- 
able men from its ranks, because other walks of life are more remunerative. Mr. Wells is 
the author of an excellent work on English Grammar, and of A Graded Course of Instruc- 
tion for Public Schools. 



556 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Barjtas Sears, D. D., 1802 , was born in Sandisfield, Mass., and graduated in Brown 

University in the class of 1825. He was successively Professor in the Hamilton Theological 
Institution ; and in the Theological Seminary at Newtown, Mass. ; Secretary of the Massa- 
chusetts Board of Education ; President of Brown University ; and, in 1867, became General 
Agent of the Peabody Educational Fund. He has written The Ciceronian, or the Prussian 
Mode of Teaching Latin; Life of Martin Luther; and numerous educational reports, etc. 
The work in which he is now engaged, as administrator of the Peabody Fund, is probably 
the most important of his life, and one for which he has eminent qualifications. 

Edward Austin Sheldon, 1823 , known all over the land by his successful career as 

Principal of the Training School for Teachers, at Oswego, N. Y., was born in Perry, N. Y., 
and educated at Hamilton College. He was for three years Superintendent of Schools at 
Syracuse. All the rest of his public life, since leaving college, has been spent in Oswego, 
He has published A Manual of Elementary Instruction ; Lessons on Objects ; and a series of 
School Readers. 

Dio Lewis, M. D., 1823 , has become noted by his publications on physical training 

and on health. Dr. Lewis is of Welsh extraction. He was born in Auburn, N. Y. ; gradu- 
ated at Harvard ; and practised medicine at Buffalo, N. Y. Becoming dissatisfied with " pill 
peddling," he began about 1856 developing his new system of gymnastics. In 1860 he went 
to Boston to establish the Normal Institute for Physical Education, obtained a charter, and 
has continued ever since to train ladies and gentlemen in the art of gymnastics. In 1864 
be established in Lexington a Young Ladies' Seminary, which was remarkably successful 
until 1867, when the building was burned. Dr. Lewis's principal publications are the fol- 
lowing: The New Gymnastics for Men, Women, and Children; Weak Lungs and how to 
make them Strong ; Talks about People's Stomachs ; Our Girls, etc. 

William W. Hall, M. D., 1810 , is a native of Kentucky, and a graduate of Centre 

College. He studied medicine at the Transylvania University, where he took his Doctor's 
degree in 1836. After practising medicine in the South for fifteen years, he came to New 
Y'ork, and in 1854 began the publication of Hall's Journal of Health, a popular periodical, 
which is still continued. He has done much, both in the Journal and other works, to bring 
a knowledge of the laws of health within the popular comprehension. His book on Health 
and Good Living had a sale of 15,000 copies the first year. 

Elihu Burritt, 1811 , "the learned blacksmith," was born in Connecticut. While 

working at his anvil, he managed in brief snatches of time to acquire a knowledge of many 
languages, ancient and modern. He is acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, 
Persian, Spanish, Danish, Icelandic, Polish, etc. He has travelled much, both at home and 
abroad, and lectured extensively, especially in the cause of temperance. His published 
works are : Sparks from the Anvil ; A Yoice from the Forge ; Peace-Papers for the People ; 
Thoughts and Things at Home and Abroad. 

Eli Bowen, 1824 , is a native of Lancaster, Pa., and author of several popular works : 

Coal Regions of Pennsylvania ; United States Post-Office System ; Pictorial Sketch-Book of 
Pennsylvania ; Rambles in the Path of the Iron Horse. 

Albert Leart Gihox, M.D., 1833 , Surgeon United States Navy, is the author of a 

manual published by the United States Government, Practical Suggestions in Naval Hygiene, 
and Is now engaged in translating Hygiene Navale from the French. He has written numer- 
ous contributions for the magazines and newspapers, while cruising in the government 
vessels. One of these, A Night in a Typhoon, in the Atlantic Monthly, was extensively 
copied abroad. Dr. Gihou was born in Philadelphia, and educated in the Philadelphia High 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 557 

School, graduating in 1850 at the head of his class. He was Professor of Chemistry in the 
Philadelphia College of Medicine in 1853-54, and entered the medical staff of the navy in 1855. 

Hannah M. Bouvier, 1811 , is a daughter of Judge Bouvier, and a native of Philadelphia. 

She is the author of Familiar Astronomy, a work of a i)opular kind, yet the fruit of high 
attainments in astronomy and embodying all the latest results of the science. The work is 
commended by the higliest astronomical authority in England and America. 



Catherine E. Beeeher. 

Catherine Esther Beecher, 1800 , oldest child of Dr. Lyman 

Beeeher, has labored and written on a variety of subjects, and with signal 
ability in each, but is best known probably by her works on physical train- 
ing, including physiology and calisthenics. 

Miss Beecher was born at East Hampton, L. I. On the removal of the family to Litch- 
field, Conn., iu 1810, she was placed at school there, but she intimates that her "schooling" 
did not amount to much. " My imagination was teeming with poetry and romance. I had 
no taste for study or for anything that demanded close attention. All my acquisitions were 
in the line of my tastes, so that at twenty no habits of mental discipline had been formed." 
Her first serious discipline, according to Mrs. Ilale, was one that " withdrew her heart from 
the world of woman's hopes." " An event occurred that for ever ended all Miss Beecher'a 
youthful dreams of poetry and romance." Since that time, she has directed her energies 
entirely to the subject of education. At the age of twenty-two she opened a girls' school in 
Litchfield, which was eminently successful. Afterwards, on the removal of her father to 
Cincinnati, she superintended a seminary for young ladies in that city. She was for many 
years engaged with Ex-Governor Slade, of Vermont, in a scheme for introducing teachers at 
the West. Her writings have been almost entirely in the line of her philanthropic efforts, 
being directed chiefly to the education and the elevation of those of her own sex. Her pub- 
lished works are the following: Domestic Service; Duty of American Women to their 
Country; The True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women; Treatise on Domestic Economy; 
Housekeeper's Receipt Book ; Letters to the People on Health and Happiness ; Physiology 
and Calisthenics ; Truth Stranger than Fiction; Common Sense Applied to Religion; Reli- 
gious Training of Children. 

Miss Elizabeth P. Peabodt, 1804 , is celebrated for her writings on educational sub- 
jects. She was born in Billerica, Mass., the daughter of Dr. N. Peabody. She spent her 
earlier years at Salem, but since 1822 has resided chiefly at Boston. As a writer on educa- 
tion, she is principally noted for her efforts to recommend, explain, and introduce Kinder- 
garten schools. In connection with her sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, she has published Moral 
Culture of Infancy, and Kindergarten Guide. She has also written on the subject in the 
educational journals. Among her other works are: Chronological History of the United 
States, arranged with Plates, on Barr's principle; First Steps to History; Key to the His- 
tory of the Hebrews, and to Grecian History; Records of a School; and Dick Harbinger, the 
Pioneer, etc. She has also translated several useful works: De Gerando's Moral Self-Educa- 
tion, Polish-American System of Chronology, etc. 

Elizabeth Blackwell, M. D., 1821 , is a native of England, but a resident of this coun- 
try. She is the first woman that has received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the United 
States. She afterwards studied midwifery in the University of Paris, She baa publiohed 
The Laws of Life, with special reference to the Education of Girls. 
47* 



558 AMERICAN LITERATUREo' 

Benjamin Greenleaf, 1786-1864, is known all over the land by his series of School Arith- 
metics. Mr. Greenleaf was born in Ilaverliill, Mass., and graduated at Dartmouth, in 1813, 
"While in college he calculated and projected the Transit of Yenus, which is to happen in 
December, 1874, so early had he shown that fondness for mathematics which became the 
ruling passion of his life. After graduation, he engaged at once in teaching, and was em- 
ployed in various places, but the chief scene of his labors as a teacher was as Principal of the 
Bradford Academy, Mass., fi-om 1814 to 1836, and of the Bradford Teachers' Seminary from 1839 
to 1848. After that date he devoted his life to revising and completing his series of text-books. 
He was noted for his piety and benevolence, for his practical wisdom, and for the singular 
purity of his life. He was the idol of the many hundreds of scholars that were successively 
under his control. Ilis school-books are too well knoAvn to need more than an enumeration. 
The following is the list: Primary Arithmetic, Elementary Arithmetic, Intellectual Arith- 
metic, Practical Arithmetic, Common School Arithmetic, National Arithmetic, Elementary 
Algebra, Higher Algebra, Elements of Geometry, Elements of Trigonometry, Geometry and 
Trigonometry. 

James A. Dodd, 1807 , was Professor of Mathematics in Centenary College, Miss., and 

afterwards in Transj'lvania University, Tenn. Prof. Dodd is the author of a popular series of 
mathematical works : Elementary and Practical Arithmetic ; High School Arithmetic ; Ele- 
mentary and Practical Algebra ; Algebra for High Schools and Colleges ; Elements of Geom- 
etry and Mensuration, etc. 

Horatio N. Robinson, LL.D., 1806-18G7, a self-taught mathematician, was born in Hart- 
wick, Otseg© County, N. Y. He is chiefly known by his mathematical school-books, forming 
a complete series, over twenty in number, from first lessons in Primary Arithmetic up to 
Analytical Geometry and the Differential and Integral Calculus. These books have been 
received with general favor, and are very largely in use in schools and colleges. 

A. ScHUTLER, A. M., 1828 , Professor of Applied Mathematics and Logic in Baldwin Uni- 
versity, Berea, Ohio, is the author of a number of valuable text-books in mathematics! Prof. 
Schuyler was born in Seneca County, N. Y., studied at the Seneca Academy, 0., and received 
the honorary degree of A. M. from the Ohio Wesleyan University. He was for twelve years 
Principal of Seneca County Academy, and since that has been Professor in Baldwin Univer- 
sity. He has published, besides a pamphlet on the Immortality of the Soul, the following 
works: Higher Arithmetic ; A Complete Algebra; Logic ; Trigonometry; Mensuration ; Sur- 
veying; Navigation. He is preparing a work on Geometry. 

Ed^A^ard Brooks. 

Edwakd Bkooks, a. M., 1831 , Principal of the State Normal 

School at Millersville, Pa., has done an important service to the cause of 
popular education by his valuable contributions to educational literature 
in the extended series of mathematical text-books which he has put forth. 

Prof. Brooks was born at Stony Point, on the Hudson, and lived there, attending the pub- 
lic school Avhen possible, until fifteen years of age, when he removed with his father to Sul- 
livan County, N. Y. Here, having no opportunity to attend school, he learned a trade, but 
soon abandoned it for more congenial employment. During all this time, spurred on by his 
ambition and drawn by an insatiable desire for knowledge, he read and studied incessantly, 
making for himself a school-room of field and forest, of shop and fireside, — of every place 
to which duty or pleasure called him. Thus he not only obtained a mastery of the branches 
he had begun in the common school, but pushed on to higher attainments, while he also 
improved his taste and formed his style by an acquaintance with music and with the stand- 
ard English authors. Ho wrote with considerable facility both prose and poetry ; and find- 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 559 

i-ng tho free nse of the pencil an cfBcient aid to tlio memory, he formed and has ever since 
adhered to tho habit of noting down and claiisifying every important fact or thought for im- 
mediate or future use. 

Prof. Brooks's career as a teacher commenced with a singing-scliool, held in a barn. He 
afterwards taught a common school at Cuddebackville, N. Y., for six months; then, after 
an interval of more than a year, in which he attended a normal institute for one session, lie 
accomixiuicd Prof. John F. Stoddard to Bethany, Pa.,wliere he taught for three years ; then 
taught a year iu the Academy at Monticello, N. Y. ; and finally, in 1S55, accepted a Profes- 
sorship in the Normal School at Millersville, Pa., where he has ever since labored with dis- 
tinguished success, and acciuircd an influence as an educator second to none in the State. 

In ISCG. on tlie resignation of Prof. J. P. Wickersham, Prof. Brooks was elected Principal 
of the institution which he had contributed so powerfully to build up; and iu this position 
he has shown administrative and business abilities of a high order, combined with broad 
and comprehensive views of the work of public education and of the adaptation of the normal 
schools to that work. Here, amid his arduous labors as a teacher, he has composed the 
works that have given him a place among American authors. They are, in fact, an out- 
growth of those labors, being a successful attempt to present on paper the philosophical 
methods of instruction employed by him in the cliiss-room with such excellent results. 

The works published by him to the present time are the following: An arithmetical series, 
consisting of six books, — a Primary, an Elementary (written), a Mental, and a Written 
Arithmetic, together with two Keys, which, besides the solutions to the problems, contain 
many valuable exercises and suggestions; Geometry, and Trigonometry, two works bound 
together or separately, its teachers may prefer ; Elementary Algebra, the latest and probably 
the best of the author"'3 works. 

The author contemplates the publication, at no'very distant day, of several other works, 
among which maybe mentioned the following: Higher Arithmetic, Higher Algebni, and 
the other books needed to complete his series of mathematical text-books; Philosophy of 
Mathematics ; A series of works on the Science of Education, including Mental Culture, 
Moral Culture, and Methods of Teaching the Branches; and finally. Lectures on Education. 

Prof. Brooks's characteristics, as manifested in his writings and lectures, may be briefly 
stated thus: A refined t;iste; a vivid imagination ; great logical acuteness, enabling him to 
detect the truth or falsity of a jjroposition at a glance, and to trace causes and deduce results 
with ease and certainty ; a profound and pervading sense of moral obligation; and a style 
which, despite a tendency to indulge too much in epigrammatic and antithetic forms of ex- 
pression, is clear, pure, strong, and eminently pleasing and attractive. 

Hon. E.E.White, 1 829 , President of the National Educational Association, and lately 

Commissioner of Common Schools for the State of Ohio, was born iu Mantua, 0. !Mr. White, 
without the advantages of a college education, has worked his way up, by perseverance and 
pluck, to his present distinguished position as one of our leading American educatoi-s. He 
became Principal of a Cleveland Grammar School, in 1851 ; of the Cleveland High School, in 
1854; Superintendent of Schools, Portsmouth, 0., 1856 ; Commissioner of Common Schools 
for Ohio, 18G."J-1866. Ho bought the Ohio Educational Monthly in 1861, and luis conducted 
it ever since, and has made it one of the best organs of public opinion in the cause of popular 
education. He has published a Cliuss-Book of Geography; a portion of Bryant & Stratton'a 
Commercial Arithmetic; a Series of School Registers; and the Gnvded School Arithmetic. 
The series l;ist named is a work of uncommon excellence, and is admirably suited to tlio 
wants of American common schools as now conducted. 

Joseph Rat, M. D., 1807-1855, author of a well-known series of mathematical tc.xt-books, 
was born in Ohio County, A'a. His early life was not unlike that of many of the self-made 
scliolars of tho West — he tiught and worked his way through College. In 1S"J8, he 
came to Cincinnati to study mcdaino, graduated, after u due course of study, at tho Ohio 



560 AMERICAN LITEBATUEE. 

Medical College, and soon entered the Commercial Hospital as a surgeon. His practice, 
however, was brief. In 1831, he entered the preparatory department of "Woodward College 
as a teacher, and, in 1834, was promoted to the position of Professor of Mathematics. In 
1851, the College gave place to the present High-School, and he was elected Principal. He 
presided over the school with signal success until his decease, in April, 1855. He was the 
author of the Eclectic Series of Arithmetics, which has had such an enormous sale in the 
West. 

Prof. Whitney. 

William Bwight Whitney, Ph. D., LL. D., 1827 , Professor of 

Sanscrit and Modern Languages in Yale College, stands at the head of 
American scholarship in the department of letters to which he has devoted 
himseK. Besides very learned disquisitions which hardly come within the 
scope of ordinary readers, his Lectures on Language are a contribution at 
once to original science and to popular literature, and are the best presenta- 
tion of the subject yet made by any American writer. 

Prof. Whitney was bom at Northampton, Mass. He graduated at Williams, in 1845, and 
afterwards studied at Berlin and Tiibingen in Germany. In 1854, he was appointed Pro- 
fessor of Sanscrit and Modern Languages in Yale College, which position he still retains. 

Prof. Whitney is the most accomplished Sanscrit scholar that America has produced. In 
this line he is the author and editor of several works which place him on an equal footing 
with the ripest European scholars. These works are the edition of the Atharva-Yeda-Sanhita 
(in which Professor Whitney was associated with K. Roth); an edition of Burgess's Transla- 
tion of the Surya-Sidhanta ; an edition of the Atharva-Yeda-Pratigakhya, with a translation 
and notes. 

Besides these larger works, Professor Whitney has contributed many valuable articles to 
the Journal of the American Oriental Society, the Bibliotheca Sacra, Weber's Indische 
Studien, Kuhn's Beitriige zur Yergleichenden Sprachforschung, etc. He has recently re- 
ceived from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin a prize for the Taittiriya Pratigakhya, 
with translation and notes. 

In addition to these strictly scientific works, he is the author of a German Grammar, 
which is probably the best yet published in America, and a German Reader, containing 
notes, vocabularies, etc. 

Professor Whitney's most popular work is his Language and the Study of Language, a 
collection of twelve lectures, or rather essays, on the general facts and principles of Compara- 
tive Philology. It is the companion-piece to Max Miiller's Lectures on tl)e Science of Lan- 
guage, and is, upon the whole, decidedly its superior. It has not that easy, graceful style 
which has contributed so much to Miiller's success in writing for the public. Whitney's 
diction is clear but involved, and not infrequently inelegant. It impresses the reader as 
being the production of a scholar who is so absorbed in his recondite researches as to over- 
look the significance of expression. But in substance it is much sounder and safer in its 
statements and inferences than Mullers work. It evinces clear insight and a vigorous gn sp 
of the entire range of the subject, without the vagaries and the "padding" in which Muller 
occasionally indulges. The merits of Whitney's work are sogreat and so unquestionable, 
that they have led to its adoption as a text-book in such of our colleges as pretend to give 
instruction in comparative philology. 

Pr.oF. Maximilian Schele Be Yere, 1820 , is a native of Sweden. He came to the 

United States in 1843, and has lived here since that time, devoting himself to literary pur- 
suits. He has been since 1844 a Professor of Modern Languages in the University of Vir- 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 661 

ginia. His publications have been mostly in the department of linguistics, and have been 
of a scholarly, and at the same time of a popular character: Outlines of Comparative Phi- 
lology ; Studies in English, or Glimpses into the Inner Life of our Language ; Grammar of 
the Spanish Language ; Stray Leaves from the Book of Nature ; "Wonders of the Deep ; Ameri- 
canisms, or The English of the New World. 

UoRATio Hale, 1817 , son of the well-known authoress, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, was born 

at Newport, R. I. He graduated at Harvard in 1S37 ; was admitted to the bar in Chicago in 
1S55 ; he resides at present in Clinton, Ontario, Canada. He has written numerous articles 
for the periodicals, but his only contribution to letters worthy of special commendation was 
that growing out of his connection with Wilkes's Exploring Expedition. Mr. Hale was 
appointed by the Government as the Philologist of the Expedition, and in this capacity he 
made himself accjuainted with a large number of the languages and dialects of the islands 
of Polynesia. His published report, filling the seventh volume of that work, a huge im- 
perial 4to, contains an immense mass of linguistic knowledge, carefully sifted and digested, 
and in all respects a model for such a work. It is held in great repute among the learned 
in both continents, and has received the very highest encomiums from eminent sources. 

Francis Andrew March, LL. D., 1825 , Professor of the English Language and Com- 
parative Philology in Lafayette College, was born in Milbury, Mass., and graduated at Am- 
herst with the highest honors in 1845. He taught two years in Leicester Academy, Mass., 
and two years as Tutor in Amherst. He then studied law and began practice in New York, 
but, having hemorrhage of the lungs, abandoned the law and went South in 1851. Having 
spent a winter in Cuba and Florida, he taught for three years (1852-1855) in Fredericksburg, 
Ta. He was appointed Tutor in Lafayette in 1855, Adjunct Professor in 1856, and Professor 
in 1858. Prof. March has contributed a number of philological articles to leading reviews in 
America, and to the Jahrbuch fiir Romanische und Englische Literatur in Berlin. His other 
publications have been the following: A Method of Philological Study of the English Lan- 
guage ; A Parser and Analyzer for Beginners ; A Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon 
Language; an Anglo-Saxon Reader. Prof. March is considered one of the most advanced 
American scholars in the department of study which he has chosen. He has done more 
probably than any other man to give to the study of Euglish and Anglo-Saxon its proper 
status in the curriculum of the American College. 

Thomas Hill, D. D., LL.D., 1818 , was bom at New Brunswick, N. J. He was pnt to 

school at the age of nine years, and remained at school about three years. He was then ap- 
prenticed to the Fredonian printing ofiRce, where he remained three years. After that he 
went to school at Lower Dublin Academy, near Philadelphia, for one year. Next he was 
apprenticed to an apothecary in his native city, and remained three and a half years. Feel- 
ing constrained to become a preacher of the gospel, he left New Jersey in May, 1838, and 
began the study of Latin and Greek with Rev. Dr. R. P. Stebbins, and entered Harvard Col- 
lego in 1839 ; graduated in due course, and entered the Divinity School at Cambridge. Ho 
completed his studies in less than the prescribed time, and was settled at Waltham, Mass., 
in December, 1845, where he preached for fourteen years. 

In January, 1860, he removed to Yellow Springs, 0., and took the Presidency of Antioch 
College, made vacant by the death of Horace Mann. 

In the fall of 1862, the war having suspended that institution. Dr. Hill took the Presi- 
dency of Harvard College, which he held for six years. Domestic sorrows having grt>atly 
impaired his health, he resigned that office in September, 1868. Two years of rest at Wal- 
tham having restored his health, he consented to serve in 1871 in the Legislature of .Ma.ssa- 
chusctts, and later in the same year went into the Coast Survey service in an expedition 
round Cape Horn. Harvard College gave him the Doctorate of Divinity in 1800, and Yulo 
that of Laws in 18C3. 

2L 



562 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Hill's force has been scattered upon too many objects to attain such results as might 
be expected from a man of his acknowledged abilities. His parochial duties and the superin- 
tendence of the public schools occupied him largely during his fourteen years in "Waltham, 
and the details of college government took up his attention afterwards. During hi8 residence 
in Yellow Springs he was also pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, in Cincinnati, seventy- 
five miles distant. 

His publications have been as follows: Poems on Slavery, 1843, pamphlet ; Elementary 
Treatise on Arithmetic, 1845; Geometry and Faith, 1849; Essay on Curves and Curvature, 
1850, pamphlet ; Popular Explanation of the Electric Telegraph, pamphlet ; Jesus the Inter- 
preter of Nature, 1860 ; First Lessons in Geometry ; A Second Book in Geometry ; Liberal Ed- 
ucation, <I>,P,K, 1859, pamphlet; Integral Education, inaugural, 1860, pamphlet; Religion in 
Public Instruction, 1861, pamphlet ; Sermons at various times in pamphlet form (four or five 
in all) ; Contributions to American Encyclojiedia on Mathematics and Astronomy, Mathema- 
ticians and Astronomers (about one hundred and fifty articles) ; Articles in North American 
Review, Atlantic Monthly, Putnam's Magazine, Phonographic Magazine, and four or five 
newspapers, prose and poetry (say twenty articles) ; Articles ia Ohio Educational Monthly, 
Massachusetts Teacher, Illinois Teacher, Barnard's Journal of Education, etc. (sixteen or 
eighteen articles) ; Communications to American Academy of Sciences. American Associa- 
tion for Advancement of Science, articles in Gould's Astronomical Journal, Runkle's Mathe- 
matical Monthly, Silliman's Journal, etc. (twenty-five articles); Lectures and Addresses 
published by American Institute of Instruction, Middlesex Agricultural Society, Ohio 
Teachers' Association, etc. (five or six); Communications and articles iu the Christian Ex- 
aminer, Monthly Religious Magazine, and in religious newspapers, in prose and verse (forty 
to fifty); — making three hundred articles, or thereabouts, without counting numerous 
newspaper paragraphs. 

Dr. Hill is also the inventor of several machines for mathematical uses ; the principal 
one being an Occultator, by which occultations visible west of the Mississippi in the years 
1865-69 were calculated for publication in the American Nautical Almanac. 

Joshua II. McIlvaine, D.D., 1815 , is a native of Lewes, Del., and a graduate of Prince- 
ton, both of the college and the seminary. He had a pastoral charge, first in Utica and then 
in Rochester, N. Y., and in 1860 he became Professor of Belles Lettres in Princeton College. 
This position he held until 1870, when he returned to the pastorate in the city of Newark. 
Dr. McIlvaine, besides being an eloquent preacher, is highly accomplished in various de- 
partments of liberal scholarship. He has paid a good deal of attention to Sanskrit and the 
aflBliated studies, and delivered a course of lectures in the Smithsonian Institute on Com- 
parative Philology, the Sanskrit Language, and the Arrowhead Inscriptions. Another topic 
to which he has given still greater study, and which is more than any other his favorite 
branch, is Social Science, or Political Economy. In this he is a disciple of Henry C. Carey. 
While a Professor at Princeton he prepared and published, 1870, a work on Elocution, the 
Sources and Elements of its Power; and he has since published a work on Rhetoric and 
Oratory. 

John Bascom, D. D., 1832 , Professor of Rhetoric at Geneva College, N. Y., was born 

at Geneva, graduated at Williams College in 1849; graduated at Andover Theological Semi- 
nary in 1855; and has been Professor of Rhetoric at Geneva since that time. He h.is pub- 
lished the followiug works: Political Economy; Rhetoric; .Esthetics; Psychology; 
Science, Philosophy, and Religion. 

James R. Boyd, D D., 1804 , was born in the town of Hunter, Greene County, N. Y. 

He prepared for college at the Albany Academy, and graduated at Union in 1822. He 
finished the theological course at Princeton, N. J., in 1826, and in the following year spent 
a few weeks at Andover Theological Seminary. In the winter of 1832 he attended the 
theological lectures of Dr. Chalmers, iu the University of Edinburgh. 



PROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 563 

After a few years Bpent in pitstoral labors, he was oiiliged, by loss of health, to discon- 
tinue them and to seek continued usefulness in the charge of seminaries of learning, and 
in writing educational and other works. lie held also the Profes.sor&hip of Moral IMiiloso- 
jihy and the pastorate, in llamilton College, Clinton, N. Y. Upon resigning this position 
he went to Geneva, and made it his home. 

The following works, some of them compilations, are from his pen: Elements of Rhetoric 
and Literary Criticism ; Moral I'hilosoidiy (an eclectic); Annotated English Classics, viz., 
Milton's Paradise Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, Cowper's Titsk, Table Talk, etc., Thom- 
son's Seasons, Pollock's Course of Time, Lord Bacons Essays ; Kevised edition of Lord 
Karnes' Elements of Criticism; Elements of Logic, on the basis of Prof. Barrow; Composi- 
tion and Rhehjric; Walk to the Communion Table ; The Westminster Shorter Catechism, 
with Analysis, Illustrative Anecdotes, etc. ; Child's Book on Shorter Catechism ; Last Days 
of a Christian Philosopher; Memoir of Life and Writings of Dr. Philip Doddridge. 

Professor Bledsoe. 

Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D., , for some time Professor of 

Mathematics in the University of Virginia, has written with great ability 
on the Philosophy of Mathematics, and on some of the most abstruse points 
of metaphysical inquiry. 

Professor Bledsoe is a native of Kentucky, and a graduate of West Point, of the class of 
1830. He was for a while Professor of the University of Mississippi, and then in the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. Ilis department is that of mathematics, though his mind seems to have 
an instinctive leaning towards metaphysical inquiry. Since 1867, he has been engaged in 
editing The Southern Review. " The Review is, like its chief editor, fearless, able, bold, 
gloveless, scholarly, and distinctively Southern, though not belligerently sectional. The 
tone and manner are sometimes felt to be severe, and those features are hardly accidental." 
J. Wood Davidson. 

Professor Bledsoe is the author of the following works ; An Examination of Edwards on 
the Will; A Theodicy, or Vindication of the Divine Glory as Manifested in the Constitution 
and Government of the Moral World; An Essay on Liberty and Slavery; The Philosophy 
of Mathematics, with special reference to the elements of geometry and the infinitesimal 
method. 

Prof. Henrt Noble Day, 1808 , nephew of the late President Day, was born in New 

Preston, Conn. He graduated at Yale in 1828. After teaching in the Seminary of John Gum- 
mere of Burlington, N. J., for three years, he was Tutor in Yale College from 1831 to 1834. 
lie then travelled for fifteen months in Europe. In 1836 he was ordained pastor of the First 
Congregational Church, in Waterbury,Conn. In 1840 he becimie Professor of Sacred Rheto- 
ric in Western Reserve College, Ohio. In order to make the college more acceptable, he, at 
the advice of his friends, engaged in the management of the Cleveland and Pittsburg Rail- 
road ; and for ten yeara that, with three other important connecting railroads, of two of 
which he wj»s the President, made many demands upon his active life. In 1858 he became 
the President of the Ohio Female College. This position he held till 1864, when he resigned 
his trust and removed to New Haven, where he has since resided. 

The following is a list of his works: The Art of Elocution; Fundamental Philoeophy, 
translated from Krug ; The Art of Rhetoric : Rhetoriciil Praxis; The Art of Book-Kecping; 
The Logic of Sir William Hamilton, reduced from his Lectures for use a.s a text-book ; Ele- 
ments of Logic ; The Art of Discourse, a reconstruction of the Art of Rhetoric; Tl»e Art of 
Composition; The American Spiller; Infrodiirtion to the Study of English Literature ; The 
Young Composer ; Logic:U Pra;vis ; The Science of jEstbotics. 



564 AMERICAN LITEEATUEE. 

Henet Copp£e, LL. D,, 1821 , President of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., ia a 

native of Georgia, and a graduate of West Point Military Academy, He was Professor of 
English Literature in the University of Pennsylvania, and afterwards became President of 
Lehigh University. He has published Elements of Rhetoric, and Elements of Logic, and he 
edited the Gallery of Famous American and English Poets. He has in press a volume of 
Lectures on English Literature. 

R.iNSOM Herbert Tyler, A. M., , -was born in Leyden, Mass., but, when a lad, moved 

with his parents to Oswego County, N. Y., where he has resided to the present time. His early 
common-school advantages were good, and he was enabled to obtain a fair classical educa- 
tion at the Mexico Academy, located in this county. He never entered college, although 
Hamilton College gave him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. lie adopted the legal 
profession as a calling, and has been engaged in the practice of the law the most of his life. 
He has held various professional appointments, the latest being that of Judge of Oswego 
County. Although his life has been devoted principally to the practice of his profession, 
he has always retained a taste for literature. His books already published are the follow- 
ing : The Bible and Social Reform, or the Scriptures as A Means of Civilization ; The 
Law of Religious Societies, Church Government and Creeds, Disturbing Religious Meetings, 
and the Law of Burial Grounds in the United States ; The Law of Infancy, including 
Guardianship and Custody of Infants, and of the Law of Coverture, embracing Dower, Mar- 
riage and Divorce, and the Statutory Policy of the several States, in respect to Husband 
and Wife ; A Treatise on the Remedy by Ejectment and the Law of Adverse Enjoyment in 
the United States. 

Judge Tyler has written a good deal on miscellaneous subjects for the newspaper press. 

William Adolphtjs Wheeler, 1833 , Assistant Librarian of the Boston Public Library, 

was born at Leicester, Mass., and graduated at Bowdoin College, in 1853. He assisted Dr. 
Worcester in the preparation of his Quarto Dictionary, from 1856 to 1860, and was joint 
author, with Mr. Rd. Soule, of the Spelling-Book known as Worcester's ; also joint author 
with the same gentleman of " A Manual of English Spelling and Pronunciation," published 
in 1861. The same year he became associate editor of Webster's Quarto Dictionary, and sub- 
sequently reconstructed the whole series of Abridgments (seven in number). In 1865, he 
brought out, in an enlarged form and as a separate volume, the Dictionary of the Noted 
Names of Fiction which had previously appeared in Webster's larger Dictionary. In 1866 
he revised and enlarged Ilale's Brief Biographical Dictionary. In 1866, he prepared, in con- 
junction with Mr. Richard Soule, a little work entitled First Lessons in Reading, which 
aims to secure all the advantages of the phonetic system without altering either the forms 
of the letters or the orthography of words. In 1868, he became assistant superintendent 
of the Boston Public Library, and head of its cataloguing department. In 1869, he issued 
a sumptuous edition of Mother Goose's Melodies, which is chiefly noteworthy as a contri- 
bution to the literary history of the country, and of Boston in pailicular, Mother Goose 
being not only a veritable personage, but a Bostonian. And lastly, he edited, in 1872, a 
Dickens Dictionary. He has in preparation a manual entitled Who Wrote It ? an Index 
to the authorship of the more Noted Works in Ancient and Modern Literature. 

Francis Bowen, 1811 , is a native of Cliarlestown, Mass., and a graduate and for many 

years a Professor of Ilai-vard University ; also, for eleven years editor of the North American 
Review. Prof. Bowen has superintended the publication of several important works (Weber's 
Universal History, Dugald Stuart's Mental Philosophy), and has also made numerous original 
contributions to literature : Essays on Speculative Philosophy; Lowell Lectures on the Ap- 
plication of Metaphysical and Ethical Sciences to the Evidences of Religion ; Principles of 
Political Economy. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 665 

R. n. Rivers, D. D., 1814 , is tlio author of two text-books in considerable use in 

Methodist seminaries for young ladies : Mental Philosophy ; Moral Philosophy. Dr. Rivers 
is a clergyman in the Methodist Church. He was born in Tennessee, and educated at La 
Grange College, Alabama, in which institution he was for seven years a Professor, In 1843, 
he was elected President of the Tennessee Conference Female Institute. He was next Pro- 
fessor and then President of Centenary College, Louisiana, and lastly President of La Grange 
College, his Alma Mater. Since the war, he has had a private school for young ladies at 
Somerville, Tenn. 

Hon. T. Wharton Collens, 1812 , is a native of New Orleans. He is a lawyer by pro- 
fession, and has held various positions connected with legal pursuits. He was judge of the 
First District Court of New Orleans in 1861. Since the war he has resumed practice as a 
lawyer. His first publication was The Martyr Patriots, a Tragedy, published in 1837. In 
1860, he published an elaborate work, on speculative philosophy, called Humanics, Svo. 

Basil L. Gildersleeve, Ph. D., , the accomplished Professor of ancient languages 

in the University of Tirginia, has published Outlines of Latin Grammar, and A Progressive 
Latin Reader. 

Professors Chase and Stuart. 

Thomas Chase, A.M., Professor of Philology in Haverford College, 
near Philadelphia, and George Stuart, A. M., Professor of Latin in the 
Philadelphia High-School, have made a valuable addition to our educa- 
tional literature in the preparation of an extended series of classical 
text-books. 

Prof. Chase, 1827 , was born in Worcester, Mass. He was educated at the Worcester 

Latin School and at Harvard College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1848 with great 
distinction, especially in Classics, Metaphysics, and English and Latin Composition. In 
1851-53 he was Tutor and for one year Professor pro tern, of Latin at Harvard. In 1853-55 
he made the tour of Europe, exploring with particular thoroughness the classic sites of 
Italy and Greece, and the monuments of ancient art. In 1854 he was matriculated at the 
University of Berlin, where he studied under Boeckh, Curtius, Trendelenburg, and other 
illustrious scholars. Returning, he accepted, in 1855, the chair of Philology in Haverford 
College, near Philadelphia, which position he still holds. 

Prof. Chase published in 1862 Hellas, her Monuments and Scenery, a graceful and schol- 
arly account of some of his travels and researches in Greece. In 1S51 he published an edition 
of the First Book of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, the Dream of Scipio, and other writings 
of Cicero on the Immortality of the Soul. 

As senior editor of Chase and Stuart's Classical Series, he has prepared the following: The 
Mne\6. of Virgil; Horace; Six Books of the ^neid, with a Vocabulary; and a school 
edition of Livy. 

He has also published several literary and biographical Addresses and Essays, and has 
contributed articles of mark to the North American Review, among which essays on the 
Homeric Question (IS-W), Wordsworth (1851), and Curtius's History of Greece (1858), may 
be particularly mentioned. 

Prof. Stuart, 1831 , was born on the right bank of the Hudson, in Saratoga County, 

N. Y. Since the ago of six years, he has lived in Phihidelphia, through wlmso system of 
public schools he passed iu succesaioa, graduating at the Uish-School in February, 1552. 
48 



566 AMERICAN LITERATURE. . 

After graduating, mathematics and languages became his favorite studies, the latter 
claiming the larger share of his time; during the last six years, they have occupied all his 
time. Hovr diligently he has maintained his habits of study is evident from the fact that 
he has acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek, Anglo-SSaxon, French, Qerman, Italian, He- 
brew, Spanish, Romaic, and Syriac. 

He has followed only the occupation of a teacher. He was Principal of a country schcol, 
1852-53; Asisistant Professor of Mathematics in the High-School, 1853-66; Tutor of Latin, 
Greek, and Mathematics in Haverford College, 1856-59 ; Professor of English Branches in 
Girard College, 1859-62 ; Principal of a Grammar School in Philadelphia, 1862-66; Professor 
of Latin in the High-School from 1866 to the present time. 

He has contributed the following to the Chase and Stuart Series of text-books : Caesar's 
Ck)mmentaries on the Gallic War, with English Notes and a Lexicon ; Cicero's Select Ora- 
tions, with English Notes and a Lexicon ; Sallast's Jugurthine War and Conspiracy of Cati- 
line, with English Notes and a Lexicon ; Virgil's Eclogues, Georgics, and Moretum, with 
English Notes and a Lexicon ; Cornelius Nepos's Lives of Eminent Commanders, with Eng- 
lish Notes and a Lexicon. 

Howard Crosbt, D. D., LL. D., 1826 ■ , Chancellor of the New York University, was born 

in the city of New York, and graduated at its university in 1844. He became Professor of 
Greek in the institution in 1851, and resigned on account of ill-health in 1859; became Pro- 
fessor of Greek in Rutgers College in 1861; Pastor of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian 
Church, New York, in 1863 ; and Chancellor of the University in 1870, holding that office in 
connection with his pastorate. 

Dr. Crosby has published the following : (Edipus Tyraunus, with notes ; Notes on the 
New Testament ; Social Hints ; Life of Jesus ; The Healthy Christian ; Lands of the Moslem, 
a volume of Oriental travel. 

Peof. Alpheus Crosby, 1810 , was bom in Sandwick, N. H., and graduated at Dart- 
mouth in 1827. He was Tutor in Dartmouth for three years ; studied theology at Andover ; 
and became Professor at Dartmouth in 1833, at first of Latin and Greek, afterwards of Greek 
only. He became Professor Emeritus in 1849. He was official lecturer in Teachers' Insti- 
tutes in Maine, 1854-56, and Principal of the State Normal School at Salem, 1857-1865. He 
lives at Salem. Prof. Crosby has published the following : A Greek and General Grammar ; 
Greek Tables ; Greek Lessons ; Xenophon's Anabasis ; Eclogue Latinse ; First Lessons in 
Geometry, etc. 

William Setmouk Ttlee, D.D., LL.D., 1810 , Williston Professor of the Greek Lan- 
guage and Literature in Amherst College, was born in Harford, Susquehanna County, Pa.; 
graduated at Amherst College in 1830 ; was Tutor in the same from 1832 to 1834 ; and has 
been Professor, first of Latin and Greek, then of Greek only from 1836 to the present time. 
He studied theology at the Theological Seminary in Andover. His publications are the 
following: The Germania and Agricola of Tacitus, with Notes for Colleges; The Histories 
of Tacitus ; Plato's Apology and Crito ; Plutarch on the Delay of the Deity in Punishing the 
Wicked, with Notes by Prof. N. B. Hackett and W. S. Tyler; The Theology of the Greek 
Poets; Premium Essay on Prayer for Colleges; Memoir of Rev. Henry Lobdell, M.D., late 
Missionary at Mosul, Assyria ; History of Amherst College during its first half century, 
with biographical sketches of its Officers and Illustrations, pp. 600. 

His articles in the quarterlies and monthlies, chiefly on classical subjects, and his printed 
discourses on public occasions, are very numerous. He has twice visited Europe and the 
East, travelling especially in Greece and Palestine in 1855-56, and in 1869-70, tarrying in 
Athens and going up the Nile. 

J. H. Hanson, 1816 , was born in China, Me., aud graduated at Waterville College 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 567 

(now Colby University) in 1842; was Principal of Watervillc Academy, 1843-1854; of East^ 
port High School, 185-1-1857; of the Boys' High School in Portland, 1857-18G5; and of the 
Waterville Classical Institute, 1865-1872. Prof. Hanson has published the following clixs- 
sical text-books: Preparatory Latin Prose Book; Cicero's Select Orations; Caisar's Gallic 
"Wars ; Handbook of Latin Poetry ; Selections from Ovid and Virgil. 

George R. Crooks, D.D., 1822 , an eminent clergyman of the Methodist Church, in con- 
nection with Dr. McClintock, prepared a valuable series of Latin and Greek school-books, 
known as the McClintock and Crooks Series; in conuectiou with Prof. Schem, he has pre- 
pared also a Latin-English Lexicon. 

Prof. N. C. Brooks. 
Nathaniel Covington Brooks, LL.D., 1809 , the veteran edu- 
cator, besides the hirge work which he has done as a teacher, has made 
numerous and vahiable contributions to educational literature. 

Prof. Brooks was born in Cecil County, Md., and graduated at St. John's College, Balti- 
more. He entered at once upon his career as a teacher, and has followed it without inter- 
ruption to the present time. lie was Principal of the Baltimore High School, 18;}9-1848; 
and President of the Baltimore Female College, 1848-1872. He was the first head of each 
of these important institutions, and gaA'e to each its tone and character. Prof. Brooks's 
publications have been numerous and varied. Those by which he is best known are his 
classical series, growing out of his wants and profession as a teacher. They are the follow- 
ing: JEneid of Virgil ; Ovid's Metamorphoses ; Caisar's Commentaries ; II istoria Sacra; Viri 
Illustres Americani ; First Latin Lessons; First Greek Lessons ; Greek Collectanea Jivange- 
lica; Scripture Manual, containing Religious Exerci.ses for Morning and Evening, for Schools 
and Families. While all of these books are admirable in design and execution, that which 
has gained the greatest credit for the richness and variety of its scholarship, and for its 
abundant helps in the way of illustrations, is his edition of Ovid. Besides these works in 
the line of his profession, Dr. Brooks published in 18G5 A Complete History of the Mexican 
War, a stately octavo of 558 pages. Prof. Brooks has written a good deal of miscellaneous 
matter, and in 1840 issued a neat volume. The Literary Amaranth, a collection of pieces in 
prose and poetry. 

CoL. WiLLi.^M BiNGH.\M, 1835 , belongs to a family celebrated all through the Southern 

States, and not unknown in those farther North, for their skill and steadfastness in the 
business of teaching. Their school, a classical academy at Mebaneville, N. C, has been 
maintained in unbroken succession for three generations, — grandfather, father, and mu. 
Col. Bingham, the present proprietor, graduated at the University of North Carolina in 
1856, and has been teaching ever since. He has published .•several excellent school-books: 
A Grammar of the Latin Language; A Grammar of the English Language; and Caesar's 
Commentaries, with Notes and a Vocabulary. 

M.\RCIU8 WiLLSON, A.M., 1813 jhas been one of the most laborious and successful 

workers in the field of school-book literature. His Readers and his Histories are known to 
teachers all over the laud. 

Mr. Willson was born in West Stockbridpe, Mass.. but spent most of his youth ami early 
manhood at Allen's Hill, Ontario County. N. Y. II.- fitted for college at Canandaigna Aca- 
demy, and graduated at Union, in ISliG, with high honors. After graduating, he taught 
under Charles Bartlett at Fishkill LandingandatPoughkeei)sie, 1836-1842, mean while study- 
ing law outside of the school-house, and being admitted to the bar in 1839. It wa.s his inien- 
tion to make law his profcsaiou, but bringing on a severe attack of bronchitis by some im- 



568 AMEEICAN LITERATURE. 

prudence in speaking; he was obliged to forego his intentions, and also to give up teaching. 
From 1842 onward, with the exception of four years, 1849-1853, when he had charge of the 
Canandaigua Academy, his main energies for about twenty years were given to the prepara- 
tion and perfecting of his series of books. In 1866, his work being substantially finished, 
he removed with his family to Vineland, N. J., where he still resides. 

The following is a list of Mr. Willson's principal publications : Civil Polity and Political 
Economy; Perspective, Architectural and Landscape Drawing; Chart of American History; 
History of the United States ; Primary American History ; American History, School and 
University Editions; Outlines of General History, School and University Editions ; School 
and Family Primer ; The First Reader of the School and Family Series; The Second Reader; 
The Third Reader; The Fourth Reader; The Fifth Reader; The Primary Speller; The Larger 
Speller ; The New Speller and Analyzer ; School and Family Charts, 22 in number ; Manual 
of Instruction in Object Lessons ; The Intermediate Third Reader ; The Intermediate Fourth 
Reader; The Intermediate Fifth Reader; The Industrial Drawing Series, 5 numbers ; The 
Drawing Guide. 

Mr. Willson has been successful with his publications. But he has earned success by an 
amount of care and toil and skill that would have insured success in almost any other walk 
of literary labor. 

Professor McGuffey. 

William H. McGuffey, D.D., LL.D., 1800 , Professor of Moral 

Philosophy and Political Economy in the University of Virginia, is widely 
known by his Eclectic Series of School Eeaders. 

Dr. McGuffey was born in Washington County, Pa., of Scotch Presbyterian descent. His 
youth was spent in farming, in Trumbull County, 0. He began the study of Latin when he 
was eighteen, and by dint of perseverance in the face of diflSculties worked his M^ay into and 
thi'ough college, graduating at Washington College in 1825. He was Professor in Miami 
University, 1825-1836 ; President of Cincinnati College, 1836-1839 ; President of Ohio Univer- 
sity, 1839-1845 ; Professor in the University of Virginia since 1845. Dr. McGuffey is a clergy- 
man in the Presbyterian Church, and preaches often. His series of Readers is too well 
known to need more than a mention. The sale of them has been enormous, 

James Madison Watson, 1827 , is extensively known by his contributions to the series 

of Readers, published under the joint names of Parker and Watson. Mr. Watson was born in 
Onondaga, near Syracuse, N. Y. He is mainly self-educated, having worked his way up by 
persistent and courageous toil, teaching and studying alternately. He studied law, and was 
admitted to the bar in 1853, but relinquished the profession for that of book-making. He 
commenced the preparation of his Readers and Spellers in 1855, and has given most of his 
time ever since to revising and completing the series. Besides these, he has published Hand- 
Book of Gymnastics ; Manual of Calisthenics ; and Phonetic Tablets. Mr. Watson is an 
accomplished elocutionist, and has done much good work in Teachers' Institutes and Nor- 
mal Schools. 

Miss Augusta Blanche Berard, 1824 , is a native and resident of West Point, N. Y., 

where for thirty years her father, Claudius Berard, was Professor of French in the Military 
Academy. Miss Berard is indebted to both her parents, who were scholarly people, for being 
early imbued with a taste for literary pursuits, and she attended for three years the excel- 
lent school of Miss Mary Hanna, at Jamaica, L. I. Miss Berard has written School History 
of the United States; School History of England; Manual of Spanish Art and Literature. 
The work last named was intended to be one of a series, treating successively each of tho 
European countries. But it did not succeed. The other two have been well received. The 



i 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 569 

History of the United States has been eminently successful. Both of them are excellent 
text-books for the use of beginners. Miss Berard has also written A Sunday Lesson Book, 
for the young, which is an admirable manual for religious instruction. 

Rev. Richard Sterling, 1812 , President of the Female College, Paris, Ky., was born 

in County Down, Ireland. He came to the United States at the age of twelve and settled in 
Newbury, N. Y.; graduated at Princeton in 1&35 ; taught at Fredericksburg and Richmond, 
Va., 1836-1S4S; was Professor in Hampden Sidney, 1848-1851 ; had charge of the Edgeworth 
Female Seminarj', Greensboro, N. C, 1851-1864, While in the last-mentioned charge he pre- 
pared the valuable series of books with which most Southern and Southwestern schools 
are familiar. He was elected to his present position in 1870. 

The following is a list of his books : Primer; Pictorial Primer; Elementary Spelling-Book ; 
First Reader; Second Reader; Third Reader; Fourth Reader; Fifth Reader; Little Orator; 
Orator; High School Speller; Primary English Grammar. 

Professors Ne^well and Creery. 

Professors Newell and Creery, of Baltimore, have prepared in con- 
junction a series of books known as The Maryland Series, which has been 
received with much favor. 

Prof. M. A. Newell, 1824 , was born in Belfast, Ireland, and was educated partly at 

the college in Belfast, and partly at Trinity College, Dublin. He came to Baltimore in 1848; 
■was Professor in the High School, 1848-1853; Professor in Madison College, Pa., 1853-18G5; 
Principal of the State Normal School, Baltimore, acting State Superintendent, 1865 to the 
present time. 

Prof. William R. Creery, 1824 , was bom in Baltimore, and graduated at Dickinson 

College, Pa., in 1842. He engaged at once in teaching, and lias made it his uninterrupted 
business ever since. He taught in the public schools of Baltimore, 1842-1854; was Professor 
of Belles Lettres in Baltimore City College, 1854-1859; President of Luthervi He Female Sem- 
inary, 1859-1862; again in the city schools, 1862-1868. In 1868, he was elected City Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction for four years, and in 1872 was re-elected for a like term. 

The publications of those gentlemen are the following: Primary School Spelling-Book; 
Grammar School Spelling-Book; First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Readers; 
Catechism of United States History. 

George P. Quackenbos,1826 - — , is a native of New York city and a graduate of Columbia 
College, of the class of 1843. He is a teacher by profession, and the author of a large num- 
ber of school-books, which have been well received : Primary Arithmetic; Elementary Arith- 
metic; Practical Arithmetic; Mental Arithmetic ; Higher Arithmetic ; Primary History of 
the United States; Elementary do.; Advanced do.; Primarj' English Grammar; English 
Grammar; First Lessons in Composition; Composition and Rhetoric ; Natural Philosophy. 

George VANDExnoFF, 1820 , an actor of good repute, bom in England, has given con- 
siderable attention to teaching elocution, and has published the following works con- 
nected with his profession: A Plain System of Elocution; A Lady's Reader ; Leaves from 
an Actor's Note Book ; Dramatic Reminiscences. 

Stephen Pearl Andrews, 1812 , is a native of Massachusetts, and autlinr of a work on 

the Common Law, but is chiefly known in connection with the history of Phonography in 
the United States. His publications in this line are Phonographic Class Books, Phono- 
graphic Reader, and Phonographic Reporter. He is also the author of The Science of Society, 
and of a work called Love, Marriage, and Divorce. 

48* 



570 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

III. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS. 

Charles Hodge. 

Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D., 1797 , Senior Professor in the 

Theological Seminary at Princeton, has been for many years the acknowl- 
edged leader in theology of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. 
His great work on Systematic Theology is the most elaborate and exhaus- 
tive treatise on that subject which American literature has yet produced. 

Dr. Hodge was born in Philadelphia, of Scotch-Irish descent. He prepared for college at 
the Academy in Somerville, N. J., and entered the Sophomore class at Princeton in 1812, at 
the age of fifteen, during the first year of the Presidency of Dr. Ashbel Green. He took a 
high standing in college, and on graduating delivered the Valedictory Oration. During the 
memorable revival of religion: in college, in 1815, he with several of his associates, (among 
them Bishop Mcllvaine, of Ohio, and Bishop Johns, of Virginia,) made a profession of reli- 
gion. The three friends entered the Seminary together, and have maintained a cordial inti- 
macy ever since, though separated in their ecclesiastical connections. 

The superiority of his intellectual abilities soon became discernible, and led to his appoint- 
ment, first as assistant teacher, and then, in 1822, as Professor, of Oriental and Biblical Litera- 
ture in the Seminary. After this appointment, he spent parts of three years abroad, in 
Paris, Halle, and Berlin, pursuing his studies, and resumed the duties of his Professorship 
on his return in 1828. After filling the chair more than twenty years, he was, at the request 
of Dr. Archibald Alexander, then in declining health, transferred to the chair of Exegetical 
and Didactic Theology, and on the death of Dr. Alexander, was made Professor also of 
Polemic Theology; and since that time, he has been the Senior Professor in the Seminary. 

A continuous Professorship of fifty years in one institution is a noteworthy fact in the 
history of American institutions, and the alumni of the Seminary celebrated the event with 
great ceremony in April, 1872, on which occasion they endowed the chair of Theology by a 
donation of $50,000, besides a gift of $15,000 to Dr. Hodge himself. 

Dr. Hodge has published the following works : System.atic Theology, 3 vols., 8vo ; The 
Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States; The Way of Life; 
Commentaries on the Epistles to the Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Ephesians. 
All these are held in the highest estimation, and are standard works on the subjects treated. 

His other great work, beyond even that of training successive generations of ministers for 
fifty yeai-s in the leading theological seminary of the country, has been his service in fciund- 
iug, editing, and writing for the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review. This work was 
begun by him in 1825, and for the first four years was, as its name imports, simply a Reper- 
tory of valuable articles, chiefly German, translated and reprinted. But after 1828, its title and 
scope were changed, and it became a Review. During the forty j'ears ensuing, ending with 
1868, Dr. Hodge was the animating and guiding soul of this chief organ of American Pres- 
byterianism, writing for it more than any other contributor, more even than any of the 
Alexanders, his articles amounting to one-fifth of the entire forty volumes, and taking the 
brunt always of the hardest and most perplexing subjects. 

Dr. Hodge's style as a writer partakes of the character of his thought. As a thinker, 
he is noted pre-eminently for clearness, and whatever he writes stands before the reader 
as if in the open sunlight. His meaning is so plain, there seems no possibility of mis- 
taking it. Though habitually calm and moderate in expression, as in his opinions, he 
sometimes in the discussion of a great question becomes energetic and vehement, and 
rises at times to a high degree of argumentative eloquence. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PTIESEXT TIME. 571 

Archibald Alexander IIodge, D.D.. 18'23 , the oldest son of Dr. Charles Hodge, was 

born and educated at Princeton. After leaving the seminary, in 1847, he spent three 
years as a missionary in India. On returning to America he was settled successively in 
AVest Nottingham, Md., in Fredericksburg, Va., and in Wilkesbarre, Pa. In 1SG2 ho was 
elected Professor of Theology in. the Western Theological Seminary, at Alleghany, where 
he still remains, lie has published Outlines of Theology, The Atonement, and Commentary 
on the Confession of Faith, all of which have been received with the highest commen- 
dations. 

William Henry Green, D. D., 1825 , Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Princeton, was bom at Grovcville, near Bordentown, N. J. lie graduated 
at Lafayette in 1840 ; studied theology at Princeton ; preached for a while in Philadelphia; 
and in 1851 was appointed to the chair which he now holds. Dr. Green has published the 
following works: A Hebrew Grammar; An Elementary Hebrew Grammar; A Hebrew 
Chrestomathy ; The Pentateuch Vindicated from the Aspersion of Colenso. He has also 
been, since his appointment to his professorship, one of the largest contributors to the 
Princeton Review, his articles already numbering over fifty. 

James Clement Moffat, D. D., 1810 , Professor of Church History in the Theological 

Seminary in Princeton, was born in the South of Scotland, where in his youth he was a 
shepherd's boy. Having no advantages of education, but an insatiable thirst for knowl- 
edge, he apprenticed himself in 1827 to a printer, with a view of getting access to books. 
Here, while working at his trade ten hours a day, he taught himself Latin, Greek, He- 
brew, something of Persian and of several European languages. In 1833 he came to the 
United States to pursue his trade as a printer, but through the advice and assistance of 
friends entered Princeton College, where he graduated in 1835. He was Tutor in the 
College, 1837-1839 ; Professor in Lafayette, 1839-1841 ; Professor in Miami University, 
1841-1853; Professor in the College at Princeton, 1853-1861 ; and since 1861 has been Pro- 
fessor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton. Dr. Moffat has published the following 
works: A Life of Dr. Chalmers ; Introduction to the Study of ^Esthetics; A Comparative 
View of Religions. He has also contributed about thirty articles to the Princeton Review, 
and published several addresses. 



John Maclean. 

John Maclean, D. D., LL. D., 1800 , tenth President of the College 

of New Jersey, ha.s made several valuable contributions to religious and 
theological literature. 

Dr. Maclean is a native of Princeton and a graduate of the college, in which he was 
an officer continuously for fifty years, being successively Tutor, Professor, Vice President, 
and President. Dr. Maclean, though pressed with the executive duties connected with 
his office, has yet always kept himself abreast with the great moral, theological, and edu- 
cational issues of the day, and has occasionally employed his pen in their discussion. 
His chief publications are the following: A Kevicw of the Action of the General Assem- 
bly, in 1S"7, defending the act of separation ; The Quorum or Ehler Question, in 1814; Tlio 
True Relations of the Church and State to Common Schools; .\ Review of Prof. Stuart's 
Prize Essay on Temperance, entering largely into what wiis called the " wine question," 
in 1831; A Review of "Bacchus" and '' Anti-Bacclius," involving some of the same ques- 
tions as the review of Stuart; also, occasional Sermons. Since his retirement, he has been 
engaged in writing a History of the College. 



672 AMEKICAN LITERATURE. 

James MeCosh. 

James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., 1811 , eleventli President of the 

College of New Jersey, has greatly distinguished himself as a writer on 
Metaphysics. 

Dr. McCosh was born in Scotland, in a country parish on the banks of "Bonnie Boon." 
He was educated at the parocliial school, and at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. 
While a student at Edinburgh, he gained his first academical distinction by an essay on 
the Stoic Philosophy, for which the University, on motion of Sir William Hamilton, went 
out of its usual course and conferred on him the honorary degree of A. M. He was or- 
dained minister of Arbroal, 1835 ; removed to Breechin, 1839 ; took an active and leading 
part in his district, in 1843, in the Free Church movement, and went out with the others 
from the establishment ; became Professor in Queen's College, Belfast, in 1852 ; and Presi- 
dent at Princeton, in 1868. 

His work on The Method of the Divine Government, published in 1850, made a profound 
impression. It showed the author to be a man capable of dealing with the very highest 
questions of mental and spiritual science, on equal terms with the great thinkers of the 
race, ancient or modern, — Aristotle, Plato, Edwards, Kant, and Sir William Hamilton. A 
visit which Dr. McCosh paid to the United States a few years later, brought him into 
acquaintance with many of the leading men of the country, and produced a most favorable 
impression in regard to his personal character and his probable abilities as an administrator 
of affairs. Accordingly, when the Presidency of Princeton College became vacant by the 
resignation of Dr. Maclean, the oflBce was tendered to Dr. McCosh, and he entered upon its 
duties in 1868. The extraordinary executive ability which he has there displayed abun- 
dantly justified the choice. 

Dr. McCosh's other works are the following : The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively 
Investigated ; Mr. J. S. Mill's Philosophy ; Typical Forms and Special Ends in the Creation 
(in connection with George Dickie, of Belfast) ; The Supernatural in Relation to the 
Natural ; Logic ; Christianity and Positivism. 

The two works last named were written in this country. All of them have been printed 
here. " As a thinker, Dr. McCosh has the rare and inestimable faculty of constructive 
thought ; not contenting himself with taking the dimensions, or even repairing the flaws of 
other men's building, but raising tier after tier of solid masonry on his own account. Hia 
work on The Intuitions of the Mind seems to us the noblest contribution made to the specu- 
lative philosophy of Scotland since the days of Reid. We have not forgotten what is due 
to Sir William Hamilton. As a metaphysical critic and logician Sir William stands facile 
princeps among Scottish philosophers of the nineteenth century. But if he defined and de- 
fended the philosophy of consciousness, Sir William did little to extend its domain ; and 
only in the book we have mentioned do we find the work commenced by Reid carried posi- 
tively forward." — Peter Bayne. 

While a professor in Queen's College, Dr. McCosh took an active part in advocating the 
disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. He wrote many pamphlets on Disestablishment, 
and on National, unsectarian Schools for Ireland. 

Lyman H. Atwater, D. D., 1813 , was born in New Haven, Conn., and graduated at Yale 

in 1831, in the same class with President Porter. He studied theology at Yale, and was for a 
time Tutor in the college. He became pastor of the First Congregational Church of Fairfield 
in 1835. He was one of those who opposed the theological views of Taylor and Bushncll. 
He began writing for the Princeton Review in 1840, and since that time he has been without 
interruption one of its leading and most able contributors. In 1S54 he was elected Professor 
of Mental and Moral Philosophy in the College at Princeton, which chair, with some modifi- 
cations, he still holds. He also lectures in the Theological Seminary. Dr. Atwater published, 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 573 

in 18C7, a Manual of Logic, which has been well received. But his chief literary work has 
been in the Princeton Review, to which he has contributed between seventy and eighty 
articles, and of which he has been for some time one of the editors. 

Charles W. Shields, D. D., 1825 , Professor in Princeton College, was born at New 

Albany, lud., and educated at Princeton, both in the College and the Seminary. He has pub- 
lished A Funeral Eulogy at the Obsequies of Dr. E. K. Kane ; Philosophia Ultima; A Manual 
of Worship ; The Directory for Public Wcrship and the Book of Common Prayer, considered 
with reference to the question of a Presbyterian liturgy ; Liturgia Expurgata, or the Prayer- 
Book Amended according to the Presbyterian Revision of 1601 ; The Book of Remembrance, 
a New-Year's Book, etc. Dr. Shields has made a special study of liturgical litemture, and 
has shown marked ability and taste in that line of composition. He has been for some years 
engaged upon an elaborate work on The Harmony of Science and Revealed Religion, in 
which he purposes to develop the views put forth briefly in his essay entitled Philosophia 
Ultima. 

Dr. Boardman. 

Henry Augustl^s Boardman, D, D., 1808 , long the most con- 
spicuous ornament of the Presbyterian Church in Phihidelphia, has made 
many valuable contributions to religious literature, among which may be 
named especially two admirable volumes, The Bible in the Family, and 
The Bible in the Counting-House. 

Dr. Boardman is a native of Troy, and a graduate of Yale, of the class of 1829. He studied 
theology at Princeton, and he became pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian church in Philadel- 
phia in 1833, immediately after leaving the Seminary, and has continued in that position 
ever since. 

His publications have been numerous, and have all been marked by signal ability. Both 
as a writer and a thinker. Dr. Boardman has few equals and still fewer superiors among 
the many distinguished Presbyterian divines who have been his contemporaries. His chief 
published works are the following : The Bible in the Family ; The Bible in the Counting- 
House ; The Great Question; The Apostolical Succession; Letters to Bishop Doane on the 
O.xford Tracts ; The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin ; The Society of Friends and the 
Two Sacraments; The Christian Ministry not a Priesthood ; A Pastor's Counsels. 

Dr. Boardman has been in the habit, on the occasion of the annual Thanksgiving, of 
preaching sermons on subjects of a public and semi-political character. Many of them 
have been printed, and have received great applause both for their dignified eloquence, and 
for the grave and statesmanlike views which they contained. Of these may be named, A 
Discourse on the American Union ; On the Federal Judiciary ; On Daniel Webster, etc. 

"Dr. Boardman's style reflects his own mental vigor, clearness, vivacity, industry, finish, 
and tiiste. It abounds in apt illustrations, puts abstract principles in concrete living forms, 
is relieved by salient points and sparkling jets ; it often rings with the notes of a genuine 
eloquence, and is enriched with copious and apposite facts, apparently noted for the purpose 
in the course of an extensive reading.'- — Princeton Eevkw. 

Tryon Edwards, D. D., 1809 , great-grandson of the first, and grandson of the second, 

President Edwards. He was born in Hartford, Conn. He was graduated in Now Haven, 
and studied theology in Princeton. He edited The Complete Works of Ballamy, with a Me- 
moir ; The Complete Works of Edwards tlie Younger, witii a Jlemoir ; and is understood to 
be preparing a like edition of the Older Edwards. He has been a contributor to the Chris- 
tian Spectator, New Englander, Biblical Repository, and Princeton Review. He is tlio 
author of Child's Commandment and Promise; Self-Cultivation; Christianity a Philosophy 
of Principles ; and a large number of other works on practical religion. 



574 AMERICAN LITERATDHE. 

Robert Davidson, D. D., 1808 , was born in Carlisle, Pa., where bis father was Presi- 
dent of Dickinson College. Dr. Davidson studied theology at Princeton, was President of 
Transylvania University, and also Superintendent of Public Instruction, in Kentucky. lie 
Las occupied various pastoral charges, and has published the following works : History 
of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky; Excursion to the Mammoth Cave, with Historical 
Notes ; Leaves from the Book of Nature, interpreted by Grace ; Letters to a Recent Convert ; 
The Relation of Baptized Children to the Church ; The Christ of God, or the Relation of 
Christ to Christianity ; Elijah, a Sacred Drama, and Other Poems. Dr. Davidson has con- 
tributed several articles to the Princeton Review, and has published a large number of 
^pamphlets. 

James M. Macdonald, D.D., 1812 , is a native of Limerick, Me., and a graduate of 

Union College. He was pastor successively of churches at Berlin and New London, Conn., 
at Jamaica, Long Island, and in the city of New York. In 1850, he became pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church in Princeton, N. J., and has remained there ever since. He has 
published the following works : Credulity, as Illustrated by Imposttires in Science ; A Key 
to the Book of Revelation ; My Father's House ; The Book of Ecclesiastes Explained ; Two 
Centuries in the History of the Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Long Island; Irony in 
History, or Was Gibbon an Iniidel? In this last-named work, which was published as an 
article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, Dr. Macdonald maintains that Gibbon was not an inudel, but 
lived and died a Christian. He has written also several articles for the Princeton Review. 

John Hall, D. D., 1806 , was born in Philadelphia, and graduated in the University of 

Pennsylvania in 1823. He studied law and commenced practice, but afterwards studied for 
the ministry. He was for some years in the service of the American Sunday-School Union, 
as editor and secretary. In 1841 he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of Trenton, 
N. J., and has remained in that position ever since. Dr. Hall, while in the service of the 
Sunday-School Union, edited the Sunday-School Journal, and the Youth's Friend, revised 
the first five volumes of Union Questions, prepared the seven subsequent volumes, wrote 
nine original books, and compiled six others, which are still retained on the catalogue of the 
Society. For the Presbyterian Board of Publication he has written The Chief End of Man ; 
The Only Rule ; Minor Characters of the Bible ; The Virgin Mary ; The Sower and the Seed ; 
Forgive us our Debts ; Sabbath-School Theology ; Life of Mrs. Sherwood. Dr. Hall was for 
forty years on terms of the greatest intimacy with the late James W. Alexander, and on the 
death of the latter published a large volume of Familiar Letters, which had passed between 
the two. He has contributed about twenty articles to the Princeton Review, and published 
a number of occasional discourses. 

S.uiuEL John Baird, D. D., 1817 , was born at Newark, 0., and studied, but did not 

graduate, at Jefferson College, Philadelphia. He studied theology at New Albany, and after- 
wards graduated at Centre College, Kentucky. He preached at different places, the last 
being in Woodbury, N. J., but in 1865. by the advice of his physician, resigned his office for 
more active employment. Dr. Baird has made a special study of Presbyterian ecclesiastical 
law. His publications are : The Assembly's Digest ; The Church of Christ, its' Constitution 
and Order; A History of the Early Policy of the Presbyterian Church in the Training of 
Ministers; A History of the New School and of tlie Questions involved in the Disruption; 
The Socinian Apostasy of the English Presbyterian Church; The First Adam and the 
Second, etc. 

William E. Schenck, D. D., 1819 , was born and educated at Princeton, N. J. He pre- 
pared for College, first in Princeton Academy, under Robert Baird, and then in the Edgehill 
School, under Prof. Patton. He graduated at the College in the class of 1838, and in the 
Seminary in the class of 1842. After preaching in several other places, he became pastor 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 675 

of the First Presbyterian church at Princeton in 1848. In 1852 he became Superintendent of 
Church Extension in Philadelpliia, nud in 1854 he was elected Secretary of the Presbyterian 
Board of Publication, which position he still holds. During a considerable part of the time 
in which he has held this office, he had charge of the literary department of its work, as 
well as its financial interests, and he has done much towards giving to the publications of 
this important Board, particularly to its juvenile books, that sound and healthy literary 
character which marks a largo portion of them. Besides this general editorial work, Dr. 
Schonck has published Children in Heaven, 8vo; Children's Praise, a book of Sunday-School 
hymns and tunes (in connection with C. C. Converse) ; Aunt Fanny's Home ; Nearing Hume, 
a book for the aged, 8vo ; An Historical Account of the First Presbyterian Church of Prince- 
ton, and four or five other Discourses on special occasions. 

Rev. John W. Dulles, D.D., 1823 , is a native and resident of Philadelphia. He was 

graduated at Yale, and studied theology at the Union Theological Seminary, New York. In 
18-1^8 he went to India as a foreign missionary, but returned in 1853 on account of ill health. 
In 1854 he entered the service of the American Sunday-School Union, and in 1857 that of 
the Presbyterian Publication Committee. His only separate publication is a volume writ- 
ten for the American Sunday-School Union, entitled Life in India. He is editor of the 
Presbyterian Board of Publication. 

Dr. Jacobus. 

Melancthon Williams Jacobus, D. D., LL. D., 1816 , Professor 

of Oriental and Biblical Literature in the Presbyterian Theological Semi- 
nary at Alleghany, Pa., is the author of a valuable series of Commentaries. 

Dr. Jacobus is a native of Newark, N. J., and a graduate of Princeton, both of the College 
and the Seminary. "While a student in the College, he took the highest honors of his class 
for scholai-ship, and he has distinguished himself since to a degree fully equal to the high 
expectations formed from the brilhant success of his early career. On finishing his course 
in the Seminary, he remained for one year as assistant to Prof. J. Addison Alexander in the 
department of Hebrew. From 1838 to 1850 he ministered very successfully to the First 
Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. In 1850, he spent a year in foreign travel, chiefly in clas- 
Bic and Bible lands, and in 1851, being then thirty-six years old, he was elected by the Gen- 
eral Assembly Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature in the Theological Seminary at 
Alleghany, Pa. The latter position he has held ever since. 

Dr. Jacobus has written Leltei-s to Governor Bigler on the Common School System, a 
tract on Universal Salvation, and a series of Notes or Commentaries on portions of the 
Scriptures. These have extended to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and Genesis. They 
belong to the same class as Barnes's Notes, being intended mainly for the use of Sunday- 
School teachers, though having some marked peculiarities of their own. They have been 
very popular, and constitute the author's chief claim to literary distinction. They are dis- 
tinguished at once by learning and critical ability, by sound judgment, and by remarkable 
clearness and grace of expression. 

George Burrowes, D. D., 1811 . is a native of Trenton, N. J., and a graduate of Prince- 
ton, of the class of 18.T2. He studied theology at Princeton, and wiis for some time Tutor 
in the College; preached at Port Deiwsit, Md , 1836-40; was Professor in Lafayette, 1840- 
1855 ; and in 1859, went to California, and became the founder, and for some years the Presi- 
dent of the University of San Francisco. Dr. Burrowes has written a good deal for the 
periodical press, and has published an elaborate work, A Commentary on the Song of 
SolooiOU. 



576 AMEKICAN LITEEATURE. 

Rev. Joseph Atert Collier, 1828-1864, was a native of Plymouth, Mass., and a graduate 
of Rutgers College, N. J., of the class of 1849. He died at Kingston, N. Y. He published 
the following works: The Christian Home, or Religion in the Family; The Right Way; 
The Young Men of the Bible ; Little Crowns and How to Win Them ; Pleasant Paths for 
Little Feet ; and Dawn of Heaven. Mr. Collier made a special study of preaching to the 
young. Most of these books are the result of his efforts in that line. 

Rev. Robert F. Sample, 1828 , was born at Corning, N. Y. He graduated at Jeflferson 

College, Pa., 1849, and studied theology at Alleghany ; has been settled at Mercer and Bed- 
ford, Pa., and for the last five years in Minneapolis, Minn. Mr. Sample has made the follow- 
ing contributions to religious literature : Early Dawn, or the conversion of a youth ; Shining 
Light, a book for young Christians ; Clouds after Rain, or the Discipline of Affliction ; Sunset, 
or the Christian's Death ; The Curtained Throne, or the Mysteries of Providence ; Education 
and Christianity in their relations to Civilization ; Memoirs of Rev. J. C. Thome, etc. 

J. E. Rockwell, D.D., 1816 , was born in Salisbury, Vt. He graduated at Amherst in 

1837, and at the Union Theological Seminary, N. Y., in 1841. He has been settled in Valatie, 
N. Y., Wilmington, Del., Brooklyn, and Stapleton, L. I. He was in Brooklyn from June, 
1851 to 1868, and built up a large church there. He has published the following volumes : 
Sketches of the Presbyterian Church; Young Christian Warned; Scenes and Impressions 
Abroad; Visitor's Questions; The Short Anchor; Seed Thoughts; The Diamond in the Cage. 
He edited the Presbyterian Sabbath-School Visitor from 1852 to 1860, and has published 
about twenty special Sermons and Addresses. 

Dr. Shedd. 

William Greenough Thayer Shedd, D. D,, 1820 , Professor of 

Biblical Literature in Union Theological Seminary, New York, has pub- 
lished a History of Christian Doctrine, a Treatise on Homiletics, and other 
valuable works. 

Dr. Shedd was born at Acton, Mass., and graduated at the University of Vermont, in the 
class of 1839.. He was pastor at Brandon, Vt., from 1843 to 1845 ; Professor of English Lit- 
erature in the University of Vermont, from 1845 to 1852; Professor of Ecclesiastical History 
in the Theological Seminary at Andover, from 1853 to 1862; Associate pastor with Dr. 
Spring, of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 1862 and '63; and in 1863 was ap- 
pointed Professor in Union Theological Seminary. His publications are : Eloquence and 
Virtue, outlines of a systematic rhetoric, translated from the German; Discourses and 
Essays; Lectures on the Philosophy of History; A Manual of Church History, translated 
from the German ; The Confessions of Augustine, edited ; A History of Christian Doctrine, 
2 vols. ; Sermons to the Natural Man ; A Treatise on Homiletics, etc. 

Henry B. Smith, D. D., LL. D., 1815 , Professor of Systematic Theology in Union The- 
ological Seminary in New York, was born in Portland, Me., and graduated at Bowdoin, 
1834. He studied theology for two years in Germany. After a pastorate of five years, in 
West Amesbury, Mass., he became Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Amherst in 
1847, and in 1850 he was elected to a chair in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, 
where he has remained ever since. Dr. Smith has translated and edited two important 
works from the German : Gieseler's Text-book of Church History, 5 vols. ; Hagenbach's Text- 
book of the History of Doctrines, 2 vols. He has prepared A History of the Church of 
Christ in Chronological Tables, a systematic view of the events, characteristics, and customs 
of each period, including the history of polity, worship, literature, and doctrines, and very 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 577 

highly esteemed for its completeness and accuracy. Dr. Smith's other publications have 
been addresses on special occasions, and have been marked by signal ability. They arc : 
Nature and Worth of the Science of History; The Problem of the Philosophy of History; 
The Reformed Churches of Europe and America in relation to General Church Uistory ; The 
Relation of Faith and Philosciphy ; The Idea of Christian Theology as a System ; An Argu- 
ment for Christian Colleges; Christian Union and Ecclesiastical Reunion; The Reunion of 
the Presbyterian Churches. Dr. Smith was editor of the American Theological Review, 
1859-1SG2, and of the Presbyterian and Theological Review, 1863-71. 

Asa D. Smith, D.D., LL.D., 1804 , is a native of Amherst, N. II., and a graduate of 

Dartmouth, of the class of 1830. He studied theology at Audover. From 1834 to 18C3 he 
was pastor of a leading Presbjrterian Church in New York city. In 1863 he became Presi- 
dent of Dartmouth College. Dr. Smith has published Letters to a Yoimg Student, Memoirs 
of Mrs. Louisa A. Leavitt, and numerous special sermons and addresses, besides articles in 
the American Theological Review, Biblical Repository, etc. 

N. L. Rice, D.D., , a distinguished clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, was 

settled for a time in Cincinnati, then in St. Louis, and then in the Fifth Avenue Church, 
New York. While in the West, he engaged actively in religious controversy. His publi- 
cations are: Debate on Baptism, with Alexander Campbell; on Universal Salvation, with 
E. M. Pringree ; on Slavery, with J. A. Blanchard; Romanism the Enemy of Free Institu- 
tions and Christianity ; The Signs of the Times ; Baptism, the Design, Mode, and Subjects; 
The Pulpit, its Relation to our National Crisis, etc. 

William Adams, D.D., LL.D., 1807 , was born in Colchester, Conn., and graduated at 

Yale in 1827. He was pastor of the Broome Street Presbyterian Church, N. Y., 1835-1853, 
and of the Madison Square Church, from 1853 to the present time. Dr. Adams has pubhshed 
The Three Gardens — Edeu, Gethsemane, Paradise ; and occasional addresses. 

Theodore L. Cuyler. 

Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, D.D., 1822 , pastor of the Lafayette 

Avenue Church in Brooklyn, by his " Stray Arrows " in the papers, has 
acquired as much distinction as by his pulpit eloquence. 

Dr. Cuyler was bom on the shore of Cayuga Lake, N. Y., and graduated at Princeton, in 
1843. He studied theology at Princeton, and has been settled successively in Burlington 
and Trenton, N. J., in New York city, and in Brooklyn. In the latter place, he has built 
up the largest church and congregation probably in his denomination in the United States; 
a membership of over twelve hundred, and a regular attendance of over eighteen hundred. 
Dr. Cuyler writes regularly for four papers, the Independent, Evangelist, National Tem- 
perance Advocate, and Zion's Herald. He writes frequently also for the Presbyterian and 
the Intelligencer. He has published more than 1300 articles. The issues of these articles 
have been between forty and fifty millions. He has written also thirty-five tracts, one of 
which. Somebody's Son, has hiul an immense circulation. His four books are. Stray Arrows, 
Cedar Christmas, Heart Life, and Emi)ty Crib. 

"A smallish, spare man, of thin, sallow countenance, dark eyes and hair, full, oratorical 
mouth, like Simpson's, and Beecher's, and Puiishon's, and Newman Hall's, dressed in his 
black gown, which it would not hurt him to abandon, he stands before an audience with no 
attempt at the dramatic in word or delivery. He never walks up and down his platform, 
never portrays with arm and feature the varied pictures of his fancy. His position and 
motions arc of a quieter sort. Yet his voice is versatile and agreeable. With it he sweeps 
49 2M 



573 AMEBICAN LITERATUKE. 

the audience. Somewhat shrill, as an ear-piercing fife, it is as melodious as a fife, and every 
ear catches easily its lightest utterance. On this, as on the sharp ringing string of a violm, 
all his feelings h.ave full play. Novel but simple declarations of Gospel truth, an acute state- 
ment, itself the most conclusive argument, a heartfelt tone of sympathy, delicate touches 
of fancy, felicities of expression, — all are infused -with a solemn, overwhelming sincerity 
which is the evident atmosphere in which his soul lives, and moves, and has its being." — 
Gilbert Haven, D.D. 

Rev. T. Db Witt Taimage, 18S2 , was bom at Boundbrook, N. J ; graduated at the 

New York University, 1853; has been settled successively in Belleville, N. J., Syracuse, N. 
Y., Philadelphia, and Brooklyn. In the latter citj- he has maintained for some years a 
** free church " in a building called a Tabernacle, capable of holding four thousand, and uni- 
formly filled to overflowing. He has also undertaken a aight college for training lay 
preachers. Mr. Talmage for a while gave much time to public lecturing, but latterly has 
abandoned the practice. ITe has published the foUovrtng books : The Almond Tree in Blos- 
som, a small book on old age ; and Crumbs Swept Up. The latter has had a large sale. 

Eev. Alfred Taylor, 1S31 , was born in Philadelphia. He has distinguished himself 

mainly by his efforts in the cause of Sunday-schools. Publications: Sunday School Photo- 
graphs ; Hints about the Sunday-School Work ; Union Prayer Meeting Hymn Book; The 
Prayer Meeting Tune Book ; The Extra Hymn Book. He established, in 3870, The Sunday- 
School "Workman, a weekly periodical devoted to Sunday-Schools, which was discontinued 
in 1871. 

Tayler Le^wis. 

Tayxee Lewis, D. D., LL. D., 1802 , Professor of Greek in Union 

College, Schenectady, is by general consent the foremost man in his depart- 
ment, in the United States. In the extent and thoroughness of his attain- 
ments in Greek, he ranks with the first scholars of the great European 
Universities. At the same time, while making these special acquisitions, 
he has not lived the life of a recluse, but has managed to keep himself 
abreast with general scholarship, and has contributed largely to current 
literature. 

Prof. Lewis was born in Northumberland, Saratoga County, N Y. He graduated at Union 
in 1820, studied law, and commenced practice. While waiting for clients, be obtained the 
loan of a Hebrew Grammar and Bible, and became so absorbed in the study that he read the 
entire Hebrew Bible through the first year. The new realm of thought thus opened led 
him to read over with fresh interest all his college text-books, and thence to a general read- 
ing of Greek and Latin authors. For nine years he continued this mode of life, studying by 
day and by night, and frequently all night. The amount of classical reading that he did 
in those years is almost incredible. At length, abandoning law altogether, he took charge 
of a classical school, and taught at Waterford and at Ogdensburg, N. Y., from 1833 to 1838. 
In 1838 he received from tlie author of the present volume an invitation to take part in the 
instruction of the Edgehill School, at Princeton, and had made an arrangement to that 
effect. But receiving about the same time the appointment of Professor of Greek in the 
New York University, he accepted the position and remained there from 1838 to 1849. Since 
1849 ho has occupied the corresponding chair at Schenectady. 

Of the extent of Dr. Lewis's classical reading, a judgment may be formed from the follow- 
ing statement: During those secluded years, before the call to the New York University, he 
read the Hebrew Bible through annually, for fourteen years ; the Iliad and Odyssey, entire, 
almost as often ; the whole of the Greek drama, forty-five extant Plays, twice over, and many 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 579 

of them oftener; all the Dialogues of Plato, 8ome of them frequeutly ; nearly all of Aristotle, 
— his Physica, Metaphysica, and his more special physical treatises, and also his Ethical 
and Political Writings; a large part of the lesser Hexameter poets, such as AppoUonius 
Rhodius, and Aratus; also Pinrlar and the pastoral poets; all of Thucydides ; all of Hero- 
dotus ; all of Xeuophon ; nearly all of Plutarch, Longinus, Lucian, Diudorus Siculus, and the 
Gnomic and Epic poetry ; all of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid ; and all of Cicero, except his 
Orations. 

Prof. Lewis's reading has been carried much further since. But the foregoing statement, 
giving an enumeration of his preparatory course, is sufficient to show his character for 
thoroughness and enthusiasm in his department. He has added Arabic and Syriac to his 
other acquisitions, and has read largely, not only in the Koran but in other Arabic theo- 
logical lore, as well as in the later Hebrew rabbinical writings. 

One peculiarity of his scholarsiiip is that he has read the ancient authors themselves, 
insteiid of reading about them. This shows itself also in his writings. His quotations and 
references are not those obtained from Lexicons and Indexes, but the spontaneous sugges- 
tions of his own mind, or the recollections of what he has himself read. 

He wrote nothing before coming to New York in 1838. Since then his pen has been busy. 
The following are his principal works: The Platonic Theology, or Plato contra Atheos; 
The Six Days of Creation ; The World Problem, or the Bible and Science; The Divine-IIuman 
in the Scriptures; State Rights, a Photograph from the Ruins of Ancient Greece; Capital 
Punishment. He has by him, ready for publication, the Bible Language of the Heart; Reli- 
gion and the State ; and five manuscript volumes of Biblical Criticism. He translated and 
edited Ecclesiastes, in Lange's Commentary, with a new metrical version, and, in connection 
with Dr. Gosman, Genesis, of the same series. 

His articles for the leading journals and reviews, .and his other papers, literary and educa- 
tional, are greater in amount than his published volumes, 

Mark Hopkixs, D. D.. LL.D., 1802 , the late distinguished head of Williams College, 

was born in Stockbridge, Mass. He graduated at Williams in 1821, studied medicine, and 
commenced practice ; was Professor of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric, in Williams 1830- 
1836; President, 1836-1858; Professor of Christian Theology since 1858. His lalwrs in the 
College have been largely instrumental in giving it its present enlarged and dignified posi- 
tion. His published volumes are : Evidences of Christianity; Lectures on Moral Science; 
The Law of Love and Love as a Law ; Discourses and Essays. Besides these, he has published 
17 Addresses on special occasions, and 19 Baccalaureate Discoui-ses. 

JoasPH H^VEX, D. D., 1816 . was born in Dennis, Mass. He graduated at Amherst in 

1835; studied in the Union Theological Seminary. N. Y., 1836-1837, and graduated at Ando- 
ver. in 1839; was settled in Ashland, and in Brookline, Mass., 1839-1850; was Professor of 
Mental and Moral Philosophy at Amherst. 1851-1858; Professor of Systematic Theology in 
the Chicago Theological Seminary, 1858-1870, when ill-health compelled him to resign. 
He still lives at Chicago. He has published three works of great value : Mental Philosophy ; 
Moral Philosophy; Studies in Philosophy and Theology. 

Edward N. Kirk, D. D., 1802 , was born in New York. He graduated at Princeton, 

in 1820; he began the study of law, but gave it up for theology, which he studied in the 
Princeton Seminary; was agent for the Foreign Missionary Society. 1SJ6-1R28; organized 
the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Albany in 18_'8, and continued there until 1837 ; was in 
Paris, Secretary of the American and Foreign Evangelical Society, 1837-1839; preached in 
the cities and large towns of the United States, advocating the cause of the Society, 1839-1842 ; 
in 1842 organized the Mount Vernon Cliurch in Boston, where he has preached ever since. 
He has three times visited Europe since his settlement in Boston. Dr. Kirk has published 
two volaines of Sermons ; about twenty other Sermons on bpecial occasions; a volume on 



680 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

The Parables of our Lord ; and has translated Gaussen on Inspiration, and Astie's Lectures 
on French Literature. 

D. X. JuNKiN, D. D., 1808 , a younger brother of Dr. George Junkin, mentioned in the 

previous chapter, was born at Hope Mills, near Mercer, Pa. He graduated at Jefferson, Pa., 
1831 ; studied theology at Princeton, 1831-1834; preached at Greenwich, N. J., 1835-1838 ; was 
Professor of Belles Lettres at Lafayette, 1838-1843; preached afterwards at Washington, 
D. C, and at Hollidaysburg, Pa. ; was Chaplain in the TJ. S. Navy, 18G0-1864 ; was pastor in 
Chicago, 1864-1866, and in New Castle, Del., since 1866. Dr. Junkin has published the fol- 
lowing volumes : The Oath a Divine Ordinance ; The Good Steward, or Systematic Benefi- 
cence ; A Biography of the Rev. George Junkin. He has ready for publication a work 
called Reconciliation of God to Man and of Man to God. He has published 6 Sermons and 6 
Addresses on special occasions, and has written a very large amount, chiefly in the form of 
letters, for the Presbyterian and for other religious newspapers. His newspaper name is 
Neshannock. 

William P. Breed, D. D., 1816 , was born in Greenbush, opposite Albany, N. Y., but 

spent his childhood and youth in New York city. He graduated at New York University 
in 1843, and studied theology in the Union Seminary in that city, and afterwards at Prince- 
ton. He was settled in Steubenville, 0., 1847-1856; and has been pastor of the West Spruce 
Street Church, Philadelphia, since 1856. He has published the following, mostly children's 
books: Man's Responsibility for his Belief; Jenny Geddes ; Christ Liveth in Me; Under 
the Oak ; Grapes from the Great Tine ; Lessons in Flying; Manna Crumbs ; Sunny Mount ; 
Little Priest ; Home Songs for Home Birds ; Book of Books ; Anthropos. 



Wm. M. Blackburn. 

"William Maxwell Blackburn, D. D., 1828 , Professor of Bibli- 
cal and Ecclesiastical History in the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at 
Chicago, has been for many years an active contributor to religious litera- 
ture, partly in the form of special studies in church history, and partly in 
the form of story-books for the young. 

Dr. Blackburn was born at Carlisle, Ind. He graduated at Hanover College, Ind., in 1850, 
and studied theology at Princeton. He preached successively at Three Rivers, Mich., Erie, 
Pa., and Trenton, N. J., 1854-1868. He has occupied his present post since 1868. His 
Sunday-school story-books are the Uncle Alick series, 8 vols. His historical stories are 
College Days of Calvin; Young Calvin in Paris; Geneva's Shield ; The Theban Legion. Of 
historical biography he has written William Farel and his Times; Ulrich Zwingli, the Pa- 
triotic Reformer; Aonio Paleario ; St. Patrick and the Early Irish Church ; Admiral Coligny 
'and the Rise of the Huguenots. He has contributed largely also to the Princeton Review 
and the American Presbyterian Review. 

Daniel Baker, D. D., 1791-1857, was born at Medway, Liberty County, Ga. He graduated 
with honor at Princeton, in 1815, and studied theology under Rev. Mr. Hill at Winchester, 
Til., and was ordained in 1818. He was pastor successively at Washington City, D. C, Sa- 
vannah, Ga., Frankfort, Ky., Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Holly Springs, Miss. lie labored exten- 
sively as an evangelist with singular success, especially in the Southern States. His last 
days were devoted to establishing and securing endowment for Austin College at Hunts- 
ville, Tenn., of which he was President. 

The works of Dr. Baker are the following: Baker on Baptism, and Baptism in a Nutshell, 



PEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 581 

a condensation of the larger treatise — works regarded as presenting in a popular form the 
entire argument upon the Presbyterian side of the question ; Address to Cliildren ; Address 
to Fathers; Address to Mothers; Revival Sermons, first and second series. The work last 
named has run through many large editions. 

Rev. William Mcmfokd Baker, 1825 , youngest son of the preceding, was bom in 

Washington City, D. C. He graduated with honor at Princeton, 1846 ; studied for the min- 
istry two years under his father, and one year at Princeton Seminary, and was ordained in 
1850. He was pastor at Galveston, Tex., and at Austin, 1850-1865. In 1865, he settled in 
the Second Presbyterian Church at Zancsville, 0., where he still lives. 

The works of Mr. Baker are the following: The Life and Labors of Rev. Daniel Baker, D. 
D., a volume having a very large circulation; Inside, a Chronicle of Secession, first pub- 
lished with illustrations in Harper's Weekly ; The Virginians in Texas, first published in 
Harper's Monthly ; The New Timothy, also first published in The Monthly ; Oak-Mot, a Sun- 
day-School Book. Mr. Baker is a frequent writer for Harper's Monthly, The Atlantic, and 
other Magazines, also for the various Religious Papers, especially those of his own denomi- 
nation. 

Dr. Plumer. 

William Swan Ploier, D. D., LL. D., 1802 , Professor of Didac- 
tic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, S. C, 
is one of the ablest theologians and preachers that the Presbyterian Church 
in the United States has produced. He is the author of seventeen volumes, 
varying in size from the small Sunday-School book to the massive octavo, 
and of more than sixty religious tracts. His writings are uniformly marked 
by clearness and vigor of thought, and are models of good English. 

Dr. Plumer was born in a town called Griersbnrg, now bearing the name of Darlington, 
in Beaver County, Pa. When he was five months old his father and family removed to 
Kentucky. Leaving Kentucky, his family settled in Washington County, 0. Here he ac- 
quired most of his primary education. In his sixteenth year he taught school in Wood 
County, Va. In his seventeenth year he taught school in Kanawha County, Va. In his 
eighteenth year he entered the Lew isburg Academy, in Greenbrier Countj', Va. He en- 
tered Washington College, Va., in 1822, and graduated in April, 1825. The same year he 
entered Princeton Theological Seminary, and in June 1826 was licensed to preach. In 
1826, he began his labors in Danville, Va. The next autumn, he went to Warrenton, N. C. 
In both these places he organized churches. He afterwards labored for some time in 
Raleigh, Washington, and Newborn, N. C. ; then in Prince Edward and Charlotte Counties, 
Va. In 1830 he was settled in Petersburg, Va. ; in 1834, in Richmond, Va. ; in 1847, in Bal- 
timore. In 1854 he became Professor of Didactic and Pastoral Theology in the Western 
Theological Seminary at Alleghany. In 1862 he removed to Pliiladeli)hia, where he pulv 
lished several books. In 1865, he became pastor of the Old School Presbyterian Church in 
Pottsville, Pa. In 1866 he wa.? elected Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the 
Seminary at Columbia, S. C, which position he still holds. 

The following are his principal works, omitting the juvenile books and the tracts: The 
Promises of God; Thoughts Worth Remembering; The Bible True; Rome against the 
Bible; The Church and Her Enemies; Vital Godliness; Rock of Our Salvation; Grace of 
Christ; Love of God ; Jehovah-jireh ; Earnest Hours; Commentary on the Epistle to the 
Romans, large 8vo ; Commentary on tlio Epistle to the Hebrews, large Svo; Studies in the 
Book of Psalms, royal Svo of 1211 pages. 
49* 



C82 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Thomas V. Moore, D. D., 1818-1871, Avas born ia NewYille, Pa. He grarluated at Dickin- 
son College, Pa., in 1838, and studied theology at Princeton. He was pastor at Greencastle, 
1845-181:7; at Richmond, 1847-1868; and at Nashville, Tenn., 18ti8-1871. His publications 
are: A Commentary on the Prophets of the Restoration; The Last Days of Jesus; God's 
University, or The Family a School, a Government, and a Church ; The Culdee Church ; The 
Corporate Life of the Church. 

R. L. Dabnet, D. D., 1820 , Professor of Systematic Theology in the Union Theological 

Seminary, Prince Edward County, Va., was born in Louisa County, Va., on the Pamnnkey 
> river. He attended Hampden Sidney for a time, but finished his college course at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, taking the degree of A. M. in 1842. He studied theology in Union Semi- 
nary above named. After preaching in various parts of Virginia, he became a Professor in 
the Seminary in 1853, and has continued there ever since, except during the war, when he 
was actively engaged in the Confederate service, so far as his health would permit. Besides 
a large number of articles in the papers, magazines, and reviews. Prof. Dabney has pub- 
lished the following volumes: Biography of F. S. Sampson; Review of Theodosia Ernest; 
Defense of Virginia and the South ; Life of Stonewall Jackson; Sacred Rhetoric ; Notes of 
Lectures on Systematic and Polemic Theology. 

Henry Ruffnee, D. D., LL.D., 1790-1861, was born on a part of the original Ruffner estate, 
in Page County, Va. While he was quite young, his father, David Ruffner, changed his 
residence to the valley of the Great Kanawha, where he purchased large tracts of land, 
which proved very valuable for farming, coal, and salt, — which lands are still owned by his 
descendants. David was the discovercjr of salt-water by boring, and was the first salt-maker 
in Kanawha. Henry received the chief ia;+ "fins classical education at the long celebrated 
school of Dr. McElhenny, at Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, Va. In 1812 he became a stu- 
dent, and at the same time a Tutor, in Washington College, Lexington, Va. In 1814 he 
received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Soon after, lie entered the Christian ministry, and 
returning to Kanawha, founded the Presbyterian church of Charleston, the first in that 
region of country. He was Professor in Washington College, Lexingtnn, 1819-18:^7, and 
President, 1837-1848. After his resignation, in 1848, he retired to his Kanawha estate, 
where he spent the remainder of his life in farming, preaching, and writing. 

His publications were the following: The Fathers of the Desert, being a History of Mon- 
achism; The Predestinarian ; Methodism; also, a considerable number of pamphlet Ser- 
mons, Lectures, Addresses, etc. Among these was his famous Address on Slavery, known 
as the " Ruff"ner Pamphlet," and containing an elaborate argument against the institution 
of slavery. It was written while he was President of the College, and caused great excite- 
ment. Dr. Ruffner wrote much and constantly for the magazines, especially for the South- 
ern Literary Messenger, Richmond. 

Rev. William Henry Ruffner, 1824 , son of the preceding, and State Superintendent 

of Public Instruction in Virginia, was horn in Lexington, Va., and graduated at Washing- 
ton College, in that place, in 1842. He studied a year longer, as resident graduate; made 
salt in Kanawha from July, 184-3, to January, 1845; studied theology at both Union and 
Princeton Seminaries, one year at each ; was Chaplain at the University of Virsrinia, 1849- 
1851; Pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, 1851-1853. Broken in 
health, he then returned to Virginia, and engaged in farming, but preached occasionally. 
In 1870, he was elected first State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Virginia. 

Mr. Ruffner, while a pastor in Philadelphia, published a book called Charity and the 
Clergy, in continuation of a subject broached by Stephen Colwell, New Themes for the Prot- 
estant Clergy. Both books indulged rather freely and sharply in criticism upon the profes- 
sion, and led to a warm discussion not yet forgotten. Mr. Ruffner was one of the leading 
writers in Stuart Robinson's Presbyterial Critic. Of late years he has written a good deal 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. T.SS 

OT> social and political subjects. In the work in which he is now engaged, as Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, he hiis shown remarkable soundness of judgment and executive 
ability. His success in this department has been little less than wonderful. 

George Dodd Armstrong, D. D , 1S13 , pastor of the Presbyterian church, Xorfidk, Ya., 

was born in Meudham, Morris County, N. J. He graduated at Princeton, in 1>^32. Imme- 
diately upon graduation he went to Virginia, where his brother. William J. Armstrong, D. D., 
was then settled jvs pastor of the First Presl)yterian Church in Richmond. Alter teadiing 
for three and a half years, George, in 1836, entered Union Theological Seminary, Prince 
Edward County, Va, In 1S38, he became Professor of Chemistry and Mechanics in \V;ish- 
ington College (now Washington-Lee University), Lexington. In 18.51 he resigned his pro- 
fessorship, in order to accept the pastoral charge of the church of Norfolk, iu which charge 
he has continued ever since. 

His earliest writings were for the Southern Literary Messenger, and RufBn's Farmer's 
Register, to both of which "magazines he was for a time a large contributor, aud he lia^ con- 
tinued to write more or less for reviews, mag-azines, and papers ever since. His first publi- 
cation iu book-form was The Summer of the Pestilence, a history of tlie terrible epidemic of 
yellow fever in Norfolk in 1855. Since that he has published: Tlie Doctrine of Baptism; 
The Christian Doctrine of Slavery; and The Theology of Christian Experience, an Exposi- 
tion of the Common Faith. 

Dr. Smyth. 

Thomas Smyth, D. D., 1808 , a distinguished Presbyterian divine 

of Charleston, S. C, has made many and able contributions to the theo- 
logical literature of his Church. 

Dr. Smyth was born at Belfast, Ireland, of a Scotch-Irish family. He was educated at 
Queen's College, Belfast, and also in London, and in the years 1830-31 studied theology at 
Princeton. lie became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston, S. C, in 
1832, and has remained there ever since. Dr. Smyth, besides doing a most efficient and useful 
pastoral work, has been busy with his pen. His publications are the following: Lectures on 
the Prelatical Doctrine of the Apostolic Succession ; Ecclesiastical Catechism of the Pres- 
byterian Church ; Presbytery and not Prelacy the Scriptni-al and Primitive Polity : Claims 
of the Free Church of Scotland on American Christians; Ecclesiiistical Republicanism ; His- 
tory of the Westminster Assembly; Calvin and his Eminence; Name, Nature, and Functiims 
of Ruling Elder; Prelatical Rite of Confirmation examined ; Union to Christ and his Cliunh ; 
Solace for Bereaved Parents: Unity of the Human Race; Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions; Church Manual; The Well in the Valley. Presbyterian Tracts: Why do I Live? 
How is the World to be Converted? Faith the Principle of Missions; Obedience the Life of 
Missions. Dr. Smyth has contributed also several articles to the Princeton Review. 

John Letburn, D.D., ,. was horn in Lexington, Va. He graduated at Princeton 

in 1S33, and studied theology at Union Seminary, Virginia, and at Columbia, S. C. Ho was 
for many years pastor of the Presbyterian church in Petereburg, Va. In 1849, he l>ecame 
Secretary of the Presl>yterian Board of Publication. In 1852, he became half-owner and 
principal editor of The Presbyterian, and continued in that position until 1861. At the 
breaking out of tiie war, he sold out his interest in The Presbyterian and went South. During 
the war, he was Secretary of the Board of Publication of the Southern Presbyterian Church, 
and exerted his abilities to great advantage in creating for tlie Sotitbern Church a religious 
literature, at a time when they were cut off from m(wt of the Christian world. Since the 
war he has been pastor of a large church in Baltimore. Dr. Leyburn has written for tiie 
press almost from boyhood. His editorials, letters, and articles of various kinds, not only 



684 AMEEICAN LITEEATUEE. 

in the Presbyterian, but in other periodicals, religions and literary, wonld fill many volumes. 
His only work in book-form is The Soldier of the Cross. He has put forth numerous pam- 
phlets and tracts. 

Stuabt Robinson, D. D., 1816 , waa born in the north of Ireland, and brought to this 

country when two years old. He graduated at Amherst in 1836, and studied theology in 
Union Seminary, Virginia, and at Princeton. He preached in Kanawha County, Ya., in 
Kentucky, and in Baltimore, 1842-1856 ; was Professor in the Danville Theological Semi- 
nary, 1856-1858 ; has been pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Louisville since 1858. 
While in Baltimore, he published a montlily, The Presbyterial Critic, which continued for 
two or three years. He founded in Louisville, in 1862, the True Presbyterian, which he con- 
tinued to edit tUl 1868, the title being changed to the Free Christian Commonwealth. Be- 
sides these editorial labors, and a large number of controversial pamphlets, Dr. Eobinson 
has published two volumes : Discourses of Redemption ; and The Church of God an Essen- 
tial Element of the GospeL 

Dr. Seott 

William Andeesois" Scott, D. D., 1813 , pastor of the St. John's 

Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, widely known as an eloquent preacher, 
has gained equal reputation as a writer, his contributions to religious litera- 
ture being both numerous and valuable. 

Dr. Scott was born in Bedford County, Tenn., of Scotch-Irish parentage. He was educated 
among the Cumberland Presbyterians, and licensed by them to preach at the age of seven- 
teen. He spent one year in missionary work, after the manner of the early circuit-riders in 
the JMethodist Church. Feeling keenly the want of education, he relinquished preaching 
and went to Cumberland College, Kentucky, where he graduated in 1833. He then studied 
theology regularly at Princeton. On leaving the Seminary he spent two years in Louisiana, 
preaching in different places. In 1836-37 he had a large Female Seminary in Winchester, 
Tenn. ; in 1888-40, he was President of the Nashville Female Academy, having at the same 
time pastoral care of the Presbyterian church at the Hermitage, which was supported mainly 
by Andrew .Jackson and his family, and of which Jackson himself became a communicant. 
Dr. Scott succeeded Daniel Baker in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 1840, and John Breckinridge in 
New Orleans, in 1842. In 1854 he went to San Francisco and organized the Calvary Presby- 
terian Church, of which he was pastor until 1861. On account of troubles growing out of 
the war, he resigned his position and went to Europe, where he resided two years, travel- 
ling, attending theological lectures, and preaching. In 1863 he became pastor of the Forty- 
Second Street Presbyterian Church, New York city, but in 1870 returned to his chosen home 
in San Francisco, where he is again engaged in the work of building up a large and power- 
ful church. 

DuriDg his former pastorate there, he aided largely, with Dr. Burrows, in establishing 
the University of San Francisco, and he is now, in connection with his present pastorate, 
Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy in the Theological Seminary under the care of the 
Synod of the Paciiic. 

Dr. Scott has travelled extensively in Europe, at different times, in 1846,1850-51, 1861-63, 
and 1868, and be has spent a year in Egypt, Arabia, Holy Land, Turkey, and Greece. He 
has been a diligent student as well as a hard worker, and he uses with ease eleven different 
languages. 

His publications are the following: The Christ of the Apostles' Creed; The Voice of the 
Church against Arianism ; Strauss and Renan ; The Centurions of the Gospel ; The Wedge 
of Gold, or Achan in El Dorado; Trade and Letters, their Journeyings round the World; 
The Giant Judge, or Samson the Hebrew Hercules ; The Bible and PoUtics, or an Humble 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 585 

Plea for equal, perfect, absolute Religious Freedom, and against all Sectarianism in our 
Public Schools ; Esther, the Hebrew Persian Queen, a popular exposition of the Book of 
Esther iu 17 Lectures ; The Pacific Expositor, 3 vols. 

Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth. 

Charles Porterfield Krauth, D.D., 1823 , Professor of Moral 

and Intellectual Philosophy in the University of Pennsylvania, is one of 
the most learned theologians in the Lutheran Church in the United States. 
His latest and largest work, The Conservative Keformation and its The- 
ology, is a work of masterly ability and independent research. 

Dr. Krauth, son of the Dr. Krauth mentioned in the previous chapter, was born in Martins- 
burg, Va., and graduated at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, in the class of 1839. He was 
ordained in 1842, and was pastor successively in Baltimore, Winchester, and Pittsburg, and 
in St. Mark's Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. In 1861, he became editor of The Lutheran 
and Missionary, Philadelphia, and in 1864 was elected Professor of Theology and Church 
History in the Lutheran Seminary in that city. In 1868, he was appointed Professor of 
Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Krauth is a man 
of great and varied learning, and his writings have given him a conspicuous position out- 
Bide of the bounds of his own Church. He published a translation of The Augsburg Con- 
fession, with Notes ; took an active part in the preparation of the Church Book of the 
Lutheran Church ; edited for a time the book department of the American Literary Gazette ; 
and has written Poverty, three essays; The Evangelical Mass and the Komish Mass; The 
Two Pageants, on the death of Mr. Lincoln ; Sketch of the Thirty Years' War ; and The 
Conservative Reformation and its Theology. This last is a large 8vo of 840 pages. " It is 
among the most elaborate and learned works on ecclesiastical or theological topics that 
have recently been published in the United States, and is marked by an exceedingly tem- 
perate and careful expression of views in respect to the position and tenets of different 
schools, which, after all allowance is made for the peculiar views of the writer, deserves 
careful attention on the part of all who care to understand the various aspects of one of the 
most important phases in the development of European thought." — Saturday Review. 

MARTiJf L. Stoever, LL.D., 1820-1870, was born in Germantown, Pa. He was graduated in 
Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, in 1838, and in 1840 was called to a Professorship in the 
institution. From that time to the time of his death. Prof. Stoever was intimately asso- 
ciated with the College in the minds of all who knew anything of its affairs. He edited and 
mainly supported The Evangelical Review, and did noble service, through various channels 
of publication, as the Lutheran biographer and the collector of Lutheran statistics. Among 
his publications are the following: Life and Times of Henry M. Muhlenberg; Memoir of 
Philip P. Mayer; A Brief Sketch of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States; 
and numerous contributions to Dr. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit. He has been 
called the "Plutarch of the Lutheran Church in America." A more genial, kindhejvrted 
man probably never lived. The familiar lines of Halleck upon his friend Drake, with 
the change of but a word or two, would form an appropriate inscription for this good man : 

None knew him but to love him, 
None named him but to praise. 

Edmund Alexander Schweinitz, 1825 , a Moravian divine, was born at Bethlehem, 

Pa.; studied theology in the Seminary at Bethlehem, and afterwards in Berlin, Prussia. He 
has published The ^Moravian Manual; Systematic Beneficence; David Zeisberger, tlie 
Western Pioneer and Apostle to the Indians. 



588 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Rev. Samuel Philips, , a minister of the German Reformed Church, is a native 

of Hagerstown, Md., and a graduate of Marshall College, class of 1847. He has published 
Gethsemane and the Cross; The Christian Home ; The Voice of Blood; The Communion of 
Saints. 

Joseph H. Seiss, D.D., 1823 , a Lutheran preacher of uncommon eloquence, was born 

at Emmetsburg, Md. He was settled for a time in Baltimore, and afterwards for many years 
in Philadelphia. His publications have been numerous. The most noted are those in 
■which he discusses the question of a Second Advent of Christ, of which he is an earnest 
advocate. The following are some of his works : The Last Times and The Great Consum- 
mation ; The Day of the Lord ; Will there be a Millennium before the Coming of Jesus ? 
Threatening Ruin ; Luther on the Epistle to the Hebrews, etc. 

Charles Frederick Schaeffer, D.D., 1807 , Professor of Theology in the Lutheran 

Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, has translated several iniportant works from the 
German: Kurtz's Manual of Sacred History; Lechler's Commentary on tbe Acts ; Arndt's 
True Christianity, etc. Dr. Schaeffer was born at Germantown, and graduated at the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, 1827. 

Charles William Schaeffer, D.D., 1813 , nephew of the preceding, was born at 

Hagerstown, Md., and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, 1832. He is pastor of 
St. Michael's Lutheran Church, at Germantown, and Professor Extraordinarius in the The- 
ological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has written, The Early History of the Lutheran 
Church in the United States; A Family Prayei'-Book ; and has translated Bogatzky's Golden 
Treasury, etc. 

Dr. Sehaff. 

Philip Schaff, D. D., 1819 , the American editor of Lange's Com- 
mentary on the Bible, is one of the most industrious and prolific contribu- 
tors to theological literature that the times have produced. 

Dr. Schaff was born in Switzerland, and educated in the Universities of Tubingen, Halle, 
and Berlin. After being for some time Lecturer on Theology in the University of Berlin, 
he was appointed Professor of Church History and Exegesi;* in the Theological Seminary at 
Mercersbnrg, Pa., by the Synod of the German Reformed Church in the United States, on the 
recommendations of Drs. Neander, Hengstenberg, Tholuck, Miiller, Krummacher, and 
others, who had been consulted about a suitable representative of German Evangelical 
Theology for America. Dr. Schaff, though called to the United States as a Theological Pro- 
fessor, has occupied himself mainly as a writer. 

His works are voluminous and iniportant. The following are the chief: The Sin against 
the Holy Ghost, and the Dogmatical and Ethical Inferences derived from it; James the 
Brother of the Lord, an exegetical and historical essay ; The Principle of Protestantism as 
related to Romanism ; What is Church History, a Vindication of the Idea of Historical De- 
velopment ; History of the Apostolic Church : History of the Christian Church from the 
Birth of Christ to the Reign of Gonstantine ; The Life and Labors of St. Augustine ; America, 
a Sketch of the Political, Social, and Pveligious character of tlie United States: Germany, 
its Universities, Theology, and Religion ; Essay on the Moral Character of Christ ; Essay on 
Slavery and the Bible ; The Anglo-American Sabbath ; The Christ of the Gospels and the 
Romance of Renan ; The Person of Christ the Miracle of History ; The Civil War and the 
Christian Life in North America. Dr. Schaff has also written several Catechisms for instruc- 
tion in the elements of Christianity, and compiled two or more Hymnals. 

His greatest work reuiaina to be noticed. That is, his editing an English translation of 



FTtOM 1850 TO THE PP.ESEXT TIME. C87 

Lange's great Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. Tins work, in its introduction to 
American readers, has been not merely translated, but has been enlarged and modified to 
such an extent as to be almost a new and original work ; and although executed in detail 
by numerous fellow-workmen, yet the whole of it has passed through the supervision of Dr. 
Schafl'iis translator and editor in chief. The work when finished will be the most complete 
and thorough commentary in the English language. 

Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., LL. D., 1819 , a leading clergyman in New York city, was 

born in Pliiladclphia, and graduated at Yalf, in the class of 1838. lie became pastor of the 
Orthodox Congregational church in New Haven in 1840, and of the Broadway Tabernacle 
in 1845. His pubiicatious have been numerous. The following are the chief : Memoir of 
Timothy Dwight, son of President Dwight ; Memoir of David Hale, editor of the Journal of 
Commerce ; Memoir of David Tappan Stoddard, missionary to the Nestorians ; The Sergeant's 
Memorial, a biography of his own son who fell in the war ; Teachings of the New Testament 
on Slavery; Christianity and Emancipation; Love and Penalty, or Eternal Punishment con- 
sistent with the Fatherhood of God ; The Holy Comforter, his Person and his Work ; Man in 
Genesis and Geology ; The College as a Religious Institution; Photographic Views of Egypt, 
Past and Present; The Believer's Refuge ; The Inalienable Possession ; Lectures to Young 
Men ; Hints to Employers, etc. 

Augustus C. Thompson, D. D., 1812 , an eminent Congregational clergyman, was born 

in Goshen, Conn., and educated at Yale. lie studied theology at East Windsor, Conn., and in 
Berlin, Prussia, and became pastor of the Eliot Church, Roxbury, Mass., in 1842. In 1855-56, 
he and Dr. Anderson went as a deputation from the American Board of Foreign Missions on 
a tour of inspection of the missions in India. Dr. Thompson has published the following 
works : Last Hours, or the Words and Acts of the Dying ; The Better Land ; The Lambs Fed, 
a catechism; Young Martyrs; The Poor Widow; The Yoke in Youth; Gathered Lilies; 
Morning Hours in Patmos; Lyra Coelestis, or Hymns on Heaven; The Mercy Seat, or 
Thoughts on Prayer ; Seeds and Showers ; Christian's Consolation, etc. 

Rev. N. G. Clark, 1825 , Secretary of A. B. C. F. M., besides his reports and essays on 

the missionary work, has published an admirable little volume on the Elements of the Eng- 
lish Language. Mr. Clark's chosen field of study, before being called to his present post, 
was that of English Literature, of which subject he was Professor in the University of Ver- 
mont and afterwards in Union College. He is a native of Calais, Vt., and a graduate of Ver- 
mont University, 1845. He studied theology at Andover and at Auburn. 

Rev. Israel P. W.\rren, 1814 , was born in Boston, and graduated at Yale, in the 

class of 1838. Ho was for several years secretary and editor of the American Tract Society 
of Boston. He is now engaged as a publisher on his own account. He lias written The 
Sisters, a memoir of the Misses Dickernian ; Sadduceeism,an argument against the doctrine 
of Annihilationists; The Snow Flakes; and the New Testament with Notes. 

Rev. Matthew Hale Smith, lias published a number of volumes: Text-Book of Univor- 
Balism; Universalism Examined, Renounced, and Exposed; Universalism not of God; Suu- 
ehine and Shadow in New York ; Mount Calvary, a series of Discourses, etc. 

6. P. Fisher, D.D., 1827 , Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College, has pub- 
lished the following works: Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity; Life of 
Benjamin Silliman; The History of the Church in Yale College; Discourse on the Life and 
Times of Drs. Taylor and Gibbs, etc. I'rof. Fisher was born at Wrontham. Mass., and grad- 
uated at Brown University in 1S47. He studied theology in New Haven, Andover, and Ger- 
many, and waa appointed Proleasor in 1854. 



588 AMERICAN LITEEATUEE, 

Benjajun "Wooderidge Dwight, Ph.D., LL.D., 1816 — — , grandson of President Timothy 
Dwight of Yale College, was born at New Haven, Conn, lie graduated at Hamilton College, 
N. Y., in 1835, and at the New Haven Theological Seminary in 1838 ; was Tutor at Hamilton 
College (1839^2); founder of the First Presbyterian Church in Joliet, 111., in 1814; Principal 
and Proprietor of Dwight's High-School in Brooklyn, N. Y. (1846-58), at Clinton, N. Y. (1858- 
63), where he had large and superior buildings which were burned down, in New York 
(1863-7), having taught over two thousand boys and young men. He has resided since 1867 
at Clinton, and been engaged chiefly in literary labor. 

He has contributed to different magazines various articles on philology, education, the- 
ology, and genealogical matters. He is the author of the following works: The Higher 
Christian Education ; Modern Philosophy, First and Second Series ; The History of the 
Strong Family, in 2 vols. ; Woman's Higher Culture ; The History of the Dwight Family, 
in 2 vols. ; and The True Scriptural Doctrine of Divine Providence. 

Dr. Halloek. 

William Allen Hallock, D. D., 1794 , the veteran Secretary 

and chief editor of the American Tract Society, has made some valuable 
contributions to literature from his own pen, besides the immense service 
that he has done through the publications of the Society of which for nearly 
half a century he has been the chief representative. 

Dr. Hallock was born in Plainfield, Hampshire County, Mass., and was the oldest son of 
Rev. Moses Hallock of that place. In earlier years he made considerable advance in Latin 
studies, but thinking that if he obtained a college education it would, if still unconverted, 
but aggravate his final doom, he aided his father in the conduct of a small farm, where he 
acquired habits of industry, economy, toil, and self-denial. At the age of twenty, at his own 
request, he resumed study, pursued the whole course of four years in Williams College, and 
graduated with the highest honors of his class, September, 1819. 

He then took the three years regular course in the Theological Seminary at Andovor, soon 
after entering which he made a public profession of his faith in Christ, never confident as to 
the time of conversion; but acting under the distinct conviction: "I owe the Lord Jesus 
ten thousand talents ; yet ever doubting whether I have been truly converted, I am doing 
almost nothing for Him — henceforth I will devote myself to his service, and if I perish, I 
perish." He felt utterly unworthy to be a missionary, or to take any part in the benevolent 
institutions of the day, and made arrangements to go into the Western Reserve, 0., or some 
other destitute regions, as a preacher of the gospel. 

But a few weeks before his graduation at Andover, the Rev. Dr. Justin Edwards, whom he 
had long venerated as a champion in the gospel ministry, and who was the Secretary of the 
New England Tract Society, called at his room, saying that there was no paid agent for the 
Tract cause in the country, that it was in a languishing state, and that the Professors of 
the Seminary had united with him in the judgment that it was his duty to give at least a 
few months to that service. 

Mr. Hallock consented, and the morning after closing his theological course, Thursday, 
September 27, 1822, sat down to examine the history of the Religious Tract Society in Lon- 
don, and of all the tract operations of this country as far as could be ascertained — the total 
donations for the tract cause throughout the country for the preceding year having 
scarcely exceeded $2,500. 

After a month spent in preparation, writing a sermon in behalf of the tract cause, and 
some circulars and articles for the newspapers, he took his cane (the expense of procuring a 
horse or riding in the stage being deemed quite too great) and visited the small neighbor- 
ing churches of New Hampshire. After five weeks he retuiuod with $419.15 received in 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 689 

donations, chiefly to constitute pastors life-members; his total expense incurred heing 
thirty-four cc-uts, the whole of which had been paid for tolls at bridges or turnpike 
gates. 

Both the receipts and the travelling expenses were deemed satisfactor}', and he went on 
to prosecute the work for two years, when the question arose, both at Boston and New 
York, of forming a National Tract Society; and after written negotiations till February, 
1825, Mr. Hallock visited New York, and after many meetings for consultation and prayer, 
received from Arthur Tappan his subscription of $0,000 for erecting a tract-house, from Moses 
Allen $0,000, from Richard T. Haines and W. W. Chester, $1,000 each, the sum being soon 
raised to $20,000, and then increased to $25,000. A public preliminary meeting was also 
held, which called a convention of delegates from all the tract societies of the country, 
which delegates met in May, 1825, when the National Tract Society was fully orgauized, 
Mr. Hallock being elected the sole Corresponding Secretary, and thenceforward giving it 
bis undivided anxieties, counsels, toils, and prayers, till the Society's annual receipts 
increased to about $500,000. 

The Memoirs of Harlan Page, of Rev. Dr. Justin Edwards, and of Rev. Moses Hallock, ap- 
pended to the Memoir of Rev. Jeremiah Hallock, were written by Dr. Hallock ; also the tracts 
Mountain Miller, Mothers Last Prayer, The Only Son, and Sketches of Rev. Dr. J. C. Bing- 
ham and Arthur Tappan. 

But the main work of Dr. Hallock's life, exclusive of his labors as Home and Foreign 
Corresponding Secretary, hits been the preparation and carrying through the press of all 
the Society's issues in English, the total list, at the end of forty-five years, being, as given by 
the Society's Forty-fifth Annual Report, 4,804, of which 921 are volumes of larger or smaller 
size ; besides the correspondence and care connected with the issuing of 4,015 publications at 
foreign stations, of which 588 are volumes, the missions and institutions aided, to which 
about $600,000 had been remitted in cash, having issued publications in 143 languages and 
dialects. The Society combining Christians of the various evangelical denominations, the 
preparation of its publications has been a work at once arduous and of high responsibility. 
As the Society pursued its steadily advancing course it became evident that practically, ex- 
clusive of the questions of the orders of the clergy and the mode and subjects of baptism, the 
great body of evangelical Christians are agreed in the soul-saving truths of the C i^pel ; 
and the universal confidence in the Society's issues, throughout the wide range of its opera- 
tions at home and abroad, is a strong testimony to the sound judgment, honesty, practical 
good sense, and in some measure also to the sound literary taste of its chief agent end 
adviser. 

Mrs. M. A. Hallock, 1810 , wife of the preceding, was born in Rowe, Mass., of 

parents of the old Puritan stock. Her mother, a Foster, was descended in a direct line from 
old Miles Standish of the May-Flower. While she was still j'oung, her father, Mr. Levi Ray, 
removed with his family to the fertile Valley of the Chenango, in the State of New York, 
and settled at Norwich, the county-seat. Her education was there carried forward in such 
schools as the place afforded till the death of her mother, when circumstances greatly 
retarded its thoroughness and completeness. 

She early had a fondness for scribbling, and was ever ready to dash off " compositions " for 
the girls of her class, which they gladly received and read as their own. In 1829 she entered 
the family of the Rev. Mr. Rexford, of Sherburne, Chenango County, and was received by 
him and his excellent wife as a beloved daughter. For four happy years she remained under 
his careful training and teaching. He was an able man — a metaphysical reasoncr, r.nd flat- 
tered his young proteg6e by saying that she more readily apprehended his ideas and argu- 
ments than some of the clergymen of the neighborhood. 

■yVhile in this family she united with the Presbyterian Church, and in 1834 wa.s married 
to Mr. Hollister Latlirop, a merchant in Brockport, N. Y. In 1854 Mr. Lathrop died, leaving 
the widow and three children with ample means, as they supposed ; but when tho uHtate waa 

60 



590 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

settled, it was found that some effort was necessary for a support, and Mrs. Lathrop resorted 
to teaching and writing. Her first book, That Sweet Story of Old, was sent to the American 
Tract Societj', with hesitation. It is now doing a good work among the children of heathen 
lands. Her other publications are: Bethlehem and Her Children; The Life of the Apostle 
Paul ; The Life of Solomon ; The Fall of Jerusalem ; The Life of Daniel ; and a book on 
Natural History — Beasts and Birds. 

The correspondence connected with the publication of these volumes led to her acquaint- 
ance with the Secretary of the Society, Dr. Hallock, and to her becoming his wife. Mrs. 
Hallock's publications, though not numerous, are held in high estimation, and are among 
the most useful and attractive which the Society has put forth. 



Henry Ward Beeeher. 

Eev. Henry Ward Beecher, 1813 , pastor of the Plymouth 

Church, Brooklyn, the most popular of American preachers, is also, though 
not equally, distinguished as a writer. His Star Papers, Life Thoughts, 
and IS^orwood are among the best-known American books. 

Mr. Beecher is a son of Dr. Lyman Beecher. He was born at Litchfield, Conn., and grad- 
uated at Amherst, in the class of 1834. He studied theology under his father, in Lane Sem- 
inary, and began his ministerial duties in the West. Since 1847, he has been pastor of the 
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., where he has gathered a congregation said to be the 
largest in the United States. His success as a popular Lecturer is quite equal t-o his success 
as a preacher, and his lectures came to be in such demand, even at the high rate of $500 a 
night, that he was obliged to decline further engagements, as interfering with his minis- 
terial duties, and for some time past he has refused all applications for public lectures and 
addresses, except for some special occasion. He was engaged at one time in editing The 
Independent. His articles written for that paper were signed with an asterisk (*),and were 
republished in book-form under the name of The Star Papers. Among his other publica- 
tions are. Lectures to Young Men; Sermons; Plymouth Collection of Hymns ; Industry and 
Idleness; Eyes and Ears; Freedom and War ; Norwood, a Novel written originally for the 
New York Ledger; Life Thoughts, consisting of selections from his extemporaneous ser- 
mons, made by one of his congregation and revised by himself; Yale Lectures on Preaching. 
Of the Life Thoughts, Star Papers, and Norwood, immense numbers have been sold. 

Rev. Edward Beecher, 1804 , eldest son of Dr. Lyman Beecher, and a preacher of con- 
siderable repute, has published several works which attracted attention. The chief of these 
is The Conflict of the Ages, which led to much discussion. Other works, Papal Conspiracy 
Exposed, and Baptism, its Import and Modes. 

Rev. Charles Beecher, 1815 , son of Dr. Lyman Beecher, like most of the members 

of that distinguished fVimily, has busied himself Nvith his pen. His chief publications arc: 
The Incarnation, or Pictures of the Virgin and her Son ; Review of Spiritual Manifestations ; 
Pen-Pictures of the Bible. 

Calvin E. Stowe, D.D., 1802 , the husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was born at Nat- 

ick, Mass., and graduated at Bowdoin, in the class of 1824. He was Professor of Latin and 
Greek at Dartmouth from 1830 to 1833 ; Professor of Languages and of Biblical Literature 
in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, from 1833 to 1850; Professor of Natural and Re- 
vealed Religion in Bowdoin College, from 1850 to 1852; Professor of Biblical Literature at 
Andover from 1852 to the present time, 1872. Prof. Stowe's first work was a translation of 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 591 

Jahn'3 History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, 2 vols. 8vo. He has written, since that, An 
Introduction to the Interpretation and Criticism of the Bible; Origin and History of the 
Books of the Bible, both Canonical and Aporryiihal, designed to show what the Bible is, 
what it is not, and hnw to use it ; Elementary Instruction in Europe, a Report made oi ig- 
inally to the Ohio Legislature, and afterwards, on account of its excellence, reprinted by the 
Legislatures of Michigan, Virginia, and North Carolina. 

Prof. Stowe has published also many Addiesses and Essays on various subjects connected 
with education and with Biblical interpretation, and has been a contributor to the Bibli- 
otheca Sacra and other periodicals. 

Richard S. Stokrs, D. D., 1821 , was born at Braintree, Mass., and graduated at Am- 
herst, in the class of 18.9. He studied law, and afterwards entered the Seminary at An- 
dover and studied theology. He was pastor of the Congregational church in Brookliue, 
Mass., in 1845, and in 1846 he became pastor of the Church of the I'ilgrims, Brooklyn, N. Y., 
where he has continued ever since. Dr. Storrs is held in the highest repute as a preacher, 
and has published a large number of single Sermons and Addresses, besides contributing to 
the Bibliotheca Sacra, the New Englander, and the Independent. He published, in 1870, a 
volume. The Constitution of the Human Soul, being a course of Graham Lectures, delivered 
at the Brooklyn Institute. 

Horace Bcshxell, D.D., 1802 , is a native of Litchfield, Conn., and a graduate of Yale, 

1827. lie has been settled at Hartford since 1833. He is greatly distinguished as a preacher 
and a writer of addresses for public occasions; and his contributions to popular literature 
on moral and religious subjects have been numerous, and of a very high order of excellence. 
His principal works are: Christian Mothers ; God in Christ; Christian Theology ; Nature and 
the Supernatural; Moral Tendencies and Results of Human History; Politics the Law of 
God; The Age of Homespun; Moral Uses of Dark Things. Dr. Bushneirs theological opin- 
ions have been called in question, as not being in accordance with those of the Church to 
which he belongs. But there can be no question as to his being a bold and original thinker, 
who expresses his opinions with singular clearness, power, and beauty. 

LEON.VRD Bacon, D.D., 1802 , is a native of Detroit, Mich., and a gnyluate of Yale, 1820. 

Dr. Bacon has been pastor of Centre Church, New Haven, since 1825, and is widely known 
as one of the New Haven school of writers. He has contributed largely to the Christian 
Spectator and the >ew Englander; also, to the New York Independent, of which he wiis for 
a time one of the editors. His separate publications are: A Manual for Young Church 
Members; Thirteen Historical Discourses, relating to the History of New Haven; Slavery 
discussed in Occasional Essays, from 1833 to 1846. 

Rev. IIenet Clat Trumbull, A. M., 18.30 , was born at Stonington, Conn., and edu- 
cated chiefly at the Williston Seminary, Mass. He married a daughter of the late T. H. Cial- 
laudet, and lives at Hartford. During the war he was engaged for three years in active ser- 
vice as chaplain in the army. He has been for many years a Missionary Secretary of the 
American Sunday-School Union, and is one of the most efficient agents of that Society. Mr. 
Clay's publications have been the following: The Knightly Soldier, a biography of M^jor 
Henry Ward Camp; The Captured Scout, a sketch of the life of Sergeant H. H. Manning; 
The Sabbath-School Concert, or Children's Meeting; Children in the Temple, a hand-book 
for the Sunday-School Concert; A Guide to tlie Childr.'n's Preacher; Falling in the Har- 
ness ; and c large number of Sermons, Addresses, Biographical Sketches, etc. 



692 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

Enoch Pond, D,D., 1791 , was bom in Wrentham, Mass., and graduated at Brown Uni- 
versity, 1813. Dr. Pond was pastor, 1815-1828 ; edited The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 182S-1832; 
has been Professor in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, Me., from 1832 to the present 
time. His contributions to religious literature have been numerous and valuable. The fol- 
lowing is a list of his works: Monthly Concert Lectures; The Worlds Salvation; Memoir 
of President Davies ; Of Susan Anthony ; Of Count Zinzendorf ; Of Wicklifife ; Of Knox ; Of 
Increase Mather and Sir William Phipps ; Of Joseph Stone ; Morning of the Reformation ; 
No Fellowship with Romanism ; First Principles of the Oracles of God ; The Mather Family ; 
Pastoral Theology ; Pope and Pagan ; Swedenborgianism ; Manual of Congregationalism ; 
'Ancient Church ; A Text-Book of Ecclesiastical History, etc. 

Nehemiah Adams, D. D., 1806 , was bom in Salem, Mass., and graduated at Cambridge, 

1826, and at Andover Seminary, 1829. He has been pastor of the Union Church, Boston, 
since 1834. He has published numerous works on religious subjects, especially on the Uni- 
tarian controversy. His principal works are: Remarks on the Unitarian Belief; The Bap- 
tized Child ; Life of John Eliot ; South-Side View of Slavery ; Friends of Christ iu the New 
Testament ; Catharine ; The Cross and the Cell ; Agnes and the Little Key ; Truths for the 
Times ; Christ a Friend ; The Communion Sabbath; Evenings with the Doctrines. 



President Chadbourne. 

Paul A. Chadbourne, LL. B., 1823 , President of Williams Col- 
lege, is distinguished as a naturalist, an administrator of affairs, and an 
author. His publications are not numerous, but are of a high order of 
ability. 

Dr. Chadbourne was born at North Berwick, Me., and graduated at Williams, 1848. He 
studied theology, but was obliged to relinquish the ministry on account of gangrene of the 
lungs, which has greatly interfered with his activity generally. He was Professor of Chem- 
istry and Botany :^t Williams, 1853-1867, and during six years of that time, 1858-1864, lec- 
tured also at Bowdoin. He was for three years, 1868-1871, President of the State Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin. In 1872 he became President of Williams. 

Dr. Chadbourne has published the following works : The Relations of Natural History to 
Intellect, Taste, Wealth, and Religion; Natural Theology ; Instinct in Animals and Man. 

E. P. BxTRR, D. D., ', pastor of a church in Lynn, Conn., is a native of Fairfield, 

Conn., and a graduate of Yale, and is connected with the family of the celebrated Aaron 
Burr. Dr. Burr is the author of the following works, which have attracted much attention : 
Ecce Coelum ; Pater Mundi ; Ad Fidem ; Application of the Calculus to the Theory of Nep- 
tune. 

Henry Marttn Dexter, D.D., 1821 , editor of the Congregationalist, was bora at 

Plympton, Mass. He graduated at Yale in 1840, and at Andover in 1844. He was pastor in 
Manchester, N. H., 1844-1849 ; and in Boston, 1849-1867. In 1867, the Congregationalist and 
Recorder becoming consolidated, he resigned his pastoral charge, and since that time has 
been editor-in-chief, and part proprietor, of this inflnential journal. For many years, before 
resigning his pastorate, Mr. Dexter gave a considerable part of his time to journalism, writ- 
ing first for The New York Independent, and from 1852 onward for the Congregationalist. 
He also, in conjunction with Drs. Clark and Quint, started, in 1859, The Congregational 
Quarterly, and was for seven years its editor. 

Besides seven or eight occasional sermons, and various articles which have been published 
in the Quarterlies, he has been the author and editor of the following books: Street 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 693 

Thonghts ; Twelve Discourses ; The Verdict of Reason ; Congregationalism : what it is ; 
whence it is ; how it works ; why it is better than any other form of Church Government, — 
and its consequent demands ; Reprint of Mourt's Relation ; Reprint of Church's Philip's War; 
A Glance at the Ecclesiastical Council of New England ; The Church Polity of the Pilgrims 
the Polity of the New Testament; Pilgrim Memoranda, Historical, Chronological, etc., etc. 
He is now preparing a new history of the Pilgrim settlement of New England, in the 
Plymouth Colony ; having spent the last year and a quarter in researches Id England and 
Holland to that end. 

Professor Park. 

Edwards Amasa Park, D. D., 1808 , Professor of Christian Theol- 
ogy in Andover Theological Seminary, has been for many years the leading 
representative of theological opinion in that institution, and its main ex- 
ponent through the columns of the Bibliotheca Sacra. 

Prof. Park was bom in Providence, R. I., and graduated at Brown University, in the class 
of 1826. He studied theology at Andover; Wiis pjvstor at Braintree, from 1831 to 18.33; Pro- 
fessor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Amherst, from 1834 to 1836 ; and became Profes- 
sor at Andover in 1836, which position he still holds, 1872. 

Prof. Park's largest single contribution to theological literature is Discourses and Trea- 
tises on the Atonement, with an Introductory Essay on the Rise of the Edwardean Theory 
of the Atonement. In connection with Prof. Phelps and Rev. D. Le Furber, he prepared a 
very interesting volume on Hymns and Choirs, giving an historical account of Hymnology 
and of Church Music. He also, in conjunction with Prof. Phelps and Lowell Mason, pre- 
pared three important manuals: The Sabbath Hymn-Book, The Sabbath Hymn and Tune 
Book, The Sabbath-School Hymn and Tune Book. He has written A 3Iemoir of Samuel 
Hopkins, D.D., prefixed to the edition of Dr. Hopkins's works, and also published separately ; 
A Memoir of B. B. Edwards, prefixed to Dr. Edwards's "Writings;" An Essay and IMemoir 
on Rev. W. B. Homer, prefi.ved to his "Writings ; " A Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons, pre- 
fixed to his Works, and also published separately ; Life and Character of Samuel II. Taylor, 
LL.D., the Principal of Phillips Academy; A Discourse on The Theology of the Intellect 
and of the Feelings, and three Pamphlets elicited by the reviews of the Discourse ; Selections 
from German Literature, translated in conjunction with Dr. B. B. Edwards ; The Preacher and 
Pastor, Thoughts from Fenelon, Herbert, Baxter, and Campbell, with an Introductory Essay ; 
and a large number of Addresses and Discourses, many of them discussing cardinal points 
in theology. He has also contributed largely to theological reviews, to Sprague's Annals, 
Smith's Bible Dictionary, etc., and has been for almost thirty years one of the main editors 
and supporters of the Bibliotheca Sacra, the recognized organ of Andover theological 
opinion. 

Austin Phelps, D. D., 1820 , Professor of Sacred Rhetoric in Andover Seminary, was 

born in West Brookfield, Mass., and graduated in the University of Pennsylvania, 1837. He 
was pastor in Boston, 1842-1848, and since 1848 has held his present position in Andover. 
Prof. Phelps's best-known work is The Still Hour, a most charming essay on private devo- 
tion. He has published also The New Birth, a series of essays on regeneration ; and he was 
one of the authors of Hymns and Choirs, and one of the editors of The Sabbath Ilynin Book. 
He is one of the contributors also to the Bibliotheca SaciSi. — Mrs. Elizabeth Stuakt 
Phelps, 1815-1S:)2, wife of the preceding, and daughter of the late Prof. Moses Stuart, was 
the author of Sunnyside, and Peep at No. 5, two books illustrative of clerical life and man- 
ners, which made considerable sensation, and reached a large circulation. She pMl)lishtHl 
also a number of Sunday-School books, moutly anouymoub, or under the title of " H. Truata," 
60* 2N 



594 AMERICAN LTTERATUEE. 

an anagram on her own name. She was a pupil of Jacob Abbott. — Miss EiiZABETn Pitelps, 

1844 , daughter of the two preceding, became suddenly famous by tlie publication of a 

book, Gates Ajar, giving imaginary glimpses into the future state of departed spirits. This 
was followed by Hedged In, a novel intended to enforce the Christian ideal of the treatment 
of fallen women ; and Tiie Silent Partner, designed to illustrate the life of female operatives 
in American factories. She has written also several Sunday-School books. But the three 
works named are the ones most known. They all show a powerful imagination, and unmis- 
takable genius. Miss Phelps, for the last ten years, has given a large part of her time to 
Christian labor among the poor. She lives in Andover, and is in feeble health. 

John Todd, D.D., 1800 , was bom in Rutland, Vt. Tie graduated at Tale, in the 

class of 1833, and studied tlieology at Andover. He was pastor of a church in Groton, Mass., 
for six years; of the Edwards Church in Northampton, four years; of the First Congrega- 
tional Church in Philadelphia for six years ; and in 1841 became pastor of a Congregational 
church in Pittsfield, Mass., where he still lives. Dr. Todd has a remarkable gift for writing 
children's books. His writings in this line, partly story, partly comment and application, 
are unsurpassed as a means of instructive entertainment for the young. They have been 
for the most part written as contributions to periodiculs, and worked up into books after- 
wards. The number of volumes of this kind is very large. Besides these, he has written 
Lectures to Children; The Student's Manual; The Sabbath-School Teacher; The Sunset- 
Land, or The Great Pacific Slope, etc. 

Asa MahaKj D.D., 1799 , was born in Vernon, N. Y., and graduated at Hamilton 

College, 1824, and at Andover, 1827. He was pastor in Pittsford, N. Y., 1829-1831 ; in Cin- 
cinnati, 1831-1835; President of Oberlin, 1835-1850. In 1850 he went to the Cleveland 
University, and after its disastrous collapse was pastor in Jackson and Adrian, Mich. ; and 
was President of Adrian College, 1860-1871. In 1871 he retired for the purpose of complet- 
ing his chief work, A Critical History of Philosophy. Dr. Mahan's works already published 
are : The Science of Intellectual Philosophy ; The Science of Moral Philosophy ; The Science 
of Logic; The Doctrine of the Will ; Modern Mysteries Explained and Refuted; Christian 
Perfection ; The True Believer ; The Baptism of the Holy Ghost. 

Jajies H. Fairchtld, D. D., 1817 , President of Oberlin University, is a native of Stock- 
bridge, Mass. When only a year old, he went to Ohio with his family, and has remained 
there ever since. He is therefore entirely a Western man. In 1834, at the age of seventeen, 
he entered the first Freshman class at Oberlin, at the time of the organization of the college, 
and he has remained in connection with the institutiou to the present time. He became 
Tutor of Languages in 1838, Professor of Languages in 1842, of Mathematics in 1847, and of 
Theology in 1858, and finally, in 1866, he was advanced to the Presidency, which oflSice he 
still holds. He has thus been in continuous connection with the College for thirty seven 
years, and during all that time has been absent from his post at the opening of the term 
biit once — in the spring of 1871. He has been for many years a member of the Prudential 
Committee of the college, and his counsels have had a controlling influence in its affairs in 
nearly the entire period of its history. His engrossing duties as the chief executive officer 
of so large an institution, have jirevented his giving much time to authorship. He has 
published, however, a work on Moral Philosophy, which has attracted a good deal of atten- 
tion, and a considerable number of pamphlets on questions connected with his college: 
Oberlin, its Origin, Progress, and Results; The Joint Education of the Sexes; Co-education 
of the Sexes, iis Pursued iu Oberlin College ; Woman's Rights and Duties ; Woman's Right 
to the Ballot ; The Social Evils of Secret Societies. He has published also several Sermons, 
and contributed frequently to the quarterlies and other periodicals. 



FROM 18 50 TO THE PTIESEXT TIME. t95 

ITexbt WmTNET Br.LLOYTS, D. D., 1814 , a Unitarian divine of much flistinction as a 

pulpit orator, and as a popular lecturer and writer, was born at Walpole, N. U., and gradu- 
ated at Cambridge, 1832. He has been pastor of All-Souls' Church, New York, since 1838. 
He has written much for the Christian Inquirer, and the Christian Examiner. The Treat- 
ment of Social Diseases was a course of lectures delivered at the Lowell Institute. His 
other publicatiims are : Restatements of Christian Doctrine ; The Old World in its New Face ; 
Relation of Public Amusements to Public Morality. During the war he was very active in 
the United States Sanitary Commission. 

Frederick Henry Hedge, D.D., 1805 , son of Professor Hed<re, was born and educated 

in Cambridge, graduating in 1S25. He was pastor in West Cambridge, 1828-1835 ; in Bangor, 
Me., 1835-1850; in Providence, R. I., 1850-1856; since 1856, in Brookline. Mass. In 1857 ho 
was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Cambridge, in connection with his pas- 
torate. His publications are : The Prose Writers of Germany ; A Christian Liturgy for the 
Use of the Church ; The Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition ; and a large number of pam- 
phlets (Orations, Sermons, etc.), and of magazine and review articles. He has written 
largely for the North American Review, the Christian Examiner, and .Atlantic Monthly. 

Prof. Peabody. 

Andrew Preston Peabody, D. T>., LL.D., 1811 , Professor of 

Christian Morals in Harvard University, is a leading theologian among the 
Unitarians, and has contributed largely to the religious literature of the 
denomination to which he belongs. 

Prof. Peabody was born at Beverly, Mass., and graduated at Harvard in 1826. He was 
pastor in Portsmouth, N. H., 18:;3-1S60, and since 186U has been Professor at Harvard. He 
has published several collections of sermons and theological discourses, and has edited 
memoirs of James Kennard, John W. Foster, Rev. Jason Whitman, Charles A. Cheever, and 
William Plumer, Jr. One of Dr. Peabody's most popular works is a treatise on the Faults 
and Graces of Conversation. Some of his other works are: Christianity the Religion of 
Nature; Sermons for Children; Reminiscences of European Travel; Lectures on Christian 
Doctrine, etc. He has also contributed many valuable articles to the North American 
Review, of which he was editor for more than nine years, and to many other periodicals. 
Dr. Peabody is one of the best known writers and theologians of New England, respected for 
Ills personal character, the conservatism of his views, and the elegance of his style. His 
best oration is thought to be that on the Uses of Classical Literature. 

Ch.irles Carroll Everett, D. D., 1829 , Professor of Theology in Harvard, was born 

at Brunswick, Me., and graduated at Bowdoin, 1850. He was for a short time Professor of 
Modern Languages in Bowdoin; pastor in Bangor, 1859-1869 ; and in 18r9 received the 
appointment to Harvard. His only publication, except pamphlets, is The Science of Thought, 
a System of Logic. 

William Rounseville Alger, 1823 , is a native of Freetown, Mass., and a gradnate of 

Cambridge Theological School, 1847. He preached for a time in Roxbury, and afterwards 
in Boston. He is the author of a History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 8vo, a work con- 
taining a vast amount of solid learning and deep research. Other works, Symlmlic History 
of the Cross of Clirist, and Oriental Poetry. Mr. Algcr h;is also been a freqtient contributor 
to the Christian Examiner. 

Rev. John Weiss, 1S18 , was born in Boston, of Gorman descent, and graduated at 



596 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

Harvard, 1837. He was pastor in "Watertown, Mass., 1843-47, but had to leave on account 
of bis ultra abolition doctrines; was recalled in 1862 and preached there to 1869, when he 
left the Unitarians and begun the movement for a " Free Religion." Mr. TTeiss has devoted 
much time to lecturing and to literature. He has translated a good deal from the German: 
The Philosophic and JEsthetic Works of Schiller; portions of Schiller for Dr. Hedge; Prose 
Writers of Germany, etc. He has written eight articles for the Christian Examiner, nfteen 
for the Atlantic Monthly, numerous papers for The Radical, and has published over thirty 
sermons and addresses. His chief works, however, are The Life and Correspondence of 
Theodore Parker, and American Religion. Mr. Weiss lives at Watertown, 

Edwix Hubbell Chapin, D.D., 1814 , a distinguished Tniversalist preacher, lecturer, 

and writer, was born at Union Tillage, N. Y., and completed his school education at Benning- 
ton, Tt. He preached for a time in Richmoud, Ya. ; removed to Charlestown, Mass., 1840 ; 
to Boston, 1846 ; to New York, 1848, where he still remains. His publications are : Hours 
of Communion; Token for the Sorrowing; Discourses on the Lord's Prayer ; Characters in 
the Gospels ; Christianity the Perfection of True Manliness ; Humanity in the City ; Moral 
Aspects of City Life ; Crown of Thorns. 

Robert Collter, 1823 , was bom at Keighley, Yorkshire, England. He left school 

at seven, and learned the trade of his father, that of a blacksmith, and worked at the anvil 
until he emigrated to America, in 1850. He settled at Shoemakertown, near Philadelphia, 
still supporting himself by working at the anvil, until 1859, when he went to Chicago, where 
he now lives. 

While in the factory, in England, he attended school two hours a day one year, and night 
school two winters. That was the extent of his schooling. 

He was a Wesleyan in England, and a local preacher. lie continued to preach after com- 
ing to America, but was silenced for heresy in 1S59. In Chicago, he was invited by the 
Unitarians at first to preach as minister at large, and afterwards as pastor of Unity Church, 
which position he still holds. His chief publications are: Nature and Life; A Man in Ear- 
nest ; The Life that Now is. He has written much for the Christian Examiner, Old and New, 
Liberal Christian, Independent, etc. 

TnEOPHiLTTS Parsoxs, LL.D., 1797 , son of Chief-Justice Parsons, and Professor in the 

Law School of Harvard, is a native of Newburyport, and a graduate of Harvard, of the class 
of 1816. Besides numerous works on law, he has published several of a popular kind : Sun- 
day Lessons; Essays on Providence, Life, Religion, etc.; Essays on the Seeming and tUb 
Actual, The Senses, The Ministry of Sorrow, etc. ; The Laws of Business for Business Men ; 
Memoir of Chief-Justice Parsons. In his moral and religious essays, Mr. Parsons is in the 
main an advocate and interpreter of the doctrines of Swedenborg, though with peculiarities 
of his own. 

Hexrt James, 1811 , is a native of Albany. He studied for some time at Union Col- 
lege and at Princeton Theological Seminary. Having adopted, in 1843, the principles of the 
Swedenborgians, he subsequently wrote a number of works in advocacy of his new opinions, 
though he did not connect himself with the society. He is a writer of more than usual vigor 
and originality. The following are his principal works : Morals and Christianity; Christi- 
anity the Logic of Creation; The Secret of Swedenborg, being an Elucidation of his Doctrine 
of the Divine Natural Humanity; The Church of Christ not an Ecclesiasticlsm ; The Nature 
of Evil ; Substance and Shadow, or Morality and Religion in relation to Life. Mr. James 
lives at Cambridge, Mass. 

Andrew Jacksox D.vvis, 1826 , a clairvoyant and spiritualist, was born in Orange 

County, N. Y. He has published a number of volumes in advocacy of his peculiar views : 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 697 

The Great Ilarmonia, 6 vols.; Nature's Divine Revelations, 800 pp., 8vo; Philosophy of Spir- 
itual Intercourse; Philosophy of Special Providences; Harmonial Man; Free Thoughts 
concerning Religion; Present Age and Inner Life; The Penetralia, Harmonial Answers; 
Review of Horace Bushuell on Supernaturalism, etc. 

Henry Jones Ripley, D. D., 1798 , was bom in Boston, and graduated at Harvard, 1816. 

He was pastor of a Baptist church in Georgia, 1819-1826; Professor in the Newton Theolog- 
ical Institution, 1826-lSGO. In 1860 he resigned, but he still lives at Newton Centre, Mass. 
His publications have been the following: Notes on the Gospels; on Acts; on Romans; on 
Hebrews ; Sacred Rhetoric, or the Composition and Delivery of Sermons ; Church Polity ; 
The Exclusiveness of the Baptists ; Christian Baptism ; Memoir of Rev. Thomas S. Wiun, 

Prof. Hackett. 

Horatio Balch Hackett, D. D., LL. D., 1808 , Professor of 

Biblical Literature in the Newton Theological Institution, is one of the 
most eminent divines and scholars of the Baptist denomination. 

Prof. Hackett was born at Salisbury, Mass. He was graduated at Amherst College, 1830, 
studied theology at Andover, and at Halle, in Germany. He was Professor of Ancient 
Languages in Brown University, 1835-1839 ; Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Interpreta- 
tion in the Baptist Theological Institution at Newton, Miv5s., 1839-1870 ; Professor of New 
Testament Greek and Exegesis in Rochester Theological Seminary, since 1S70. 

Besides several Hebrew and classical text-books, and contributions to literary and theo- 
logical reviews, he has written the following : A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostlea ; 
Illustrations of Scripture suggested by a Tour in the Holy Land; Notes on the Greek Text 
of Philemon, with a revised Translation; Commentary on Philemon, and on Philippians, 
translated from the German, with additions, for Schaff's edition of Lange; Smith's Bible 
Dictionary, 4 vols., 3367 pp., revised and edited, with numerous additions and corrections ; 
Plutarch on the Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked, edited in conjunction with 
Prof. Tyler of Amherst, with philological notes. 

Dr. Hackett has the reputation of being an acute and able critic, and is held in high 
respect by all denominations. His researches in a journey to the ancient Phililppi, in 1859, 
brought out valuable results, which have found their way into most commentaries on the 
Acts since that time. 

Dr. Hackett ha.s been appointed one of the American revisers of the New Testament, in 
co-operation with the Board of English revisers of the Bible. 

Alvah Hovey, D.D., 1820 , Professor of Christian Theology in the Newton Theological 

Institution, was born in Greene, Chenango County, N. Y., but spent his boyhood and youth 
at Thetford, Vt. He graduated at Dartmouth, in 1844, and in the Newton Theological Insti- 
tution in 1848. He began teaching in the Institution in 1S49, and was made full Professor 
in 1853. Besides numerous special sermons and addresses, he has published tlie following 
volumes: The Scriptural Law of Divorce; The Miracles of Christ as attested by the Evan- 
gelists ; The State of the Impenitent Dead ; The Life and Times of Rev. Isaac Backus. 

J.^mes Tift Champlin, D.D., 1811 , was born in Colchester, Conn. He graduated at 

Brown University in 1834. with the first honore of his class; was Tutor in the University, 
183.7-1838; Pastor of the Federal Street Baptist Church in Portland, Me., 1S3S-1S41 ; Pro- 
fessor of Ancient Languages in Waterville College (now Colby University), 1841-1857 ; and 
President of the same, 1857 to the present time. 

While Professor, be published editions of Demostheaes and .£schiucs ou the Crown, and 



598 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

of the Select Popular Orations of Demosthenes, and translated and remodelled Kiihner's 
Latin Grammar. The latter book passed throngh several editions, and the former books are 
still in general use. While President, he edited Butler's Analogy and Ethical Discourses, and 
published three important original works : A Text-Book on Intellectual Philosophy; The 
First Principles of Ethics; and Lessons on Political Economy. All these books have passed 
through several editions, and are still extensively used. The distinguishing principle of his 
Intellectual Philosophy is, that our perception of external objects is direct and immediate ; 
and of the Ethics, that our perception of right and wrong is not intuitive, but is a rational 
conclusion drawn from the nature of each case. He baa writteuj also, various articles for 
the Christian Review, from 1850 onwards. 

Jeremiah Chaplin, D. D , 1813 , son of the first President of Waterville College, the 

late Jeremiah Chaplin, was born at Danvers, Mass., and educated at Waterville. He was pastor 
of the Baptist church in Bangor, Me.; afterwards, in Newton Centre, Mass. ; and latterly 
has lived in Boston, engaged in literary pursuits. He is the author of the following works : 
The Evening of Life; The Memorial Hour; Riches of Bunyan; The Hand of Jesus; Life of 
Rev. Duncan Dunbar; Life of Henry Dunster, First President of Harvard College. The last, 
though a comparatively small work, is one of original research and of great historical value. 



President Samson. 

George Whitefield Samson, D. D., President of Eutgers Female Col- 
lege, New York city, has a high reputation as an educator, and is the author 
of several valuable works. 

Dr. Samson was born in Worcester County, Mass., and graduated at Brown University, in 
the class of 1839. He studied for the ministry in the Theological Institution at Newton, 
Mass.; and after graduating there in 1813, became pastor of a church in Washington city, 
where he continued until 1850. During this time he had leave of absence for one year, 1847 
and '48, and improved the opportunity by visiting Egypt, the Desert of Sinai, Palestine, Asia- 
Minor, Constantinople, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and England. In 1850 
and 1851, he was pastor of a church in the suburbs of Boston. In 1852, he returned to the 
church at Washington, and remained in that position for the ensuing seven years. In 1859, 
he was elected President of Columbian College in Washington, and he continued to preside 
over that institution until 1871, when he became President of the Rutgers Female College, 
New York city. Dr. Samson's works are the following: Letters of Travel, descriptive of his 
journey in 1847-8 ; Articles in the Quarterly Review on The Delta of Egypt. Turkish Col- 
leges, The Koran, The Mohammedan Government, Art Education, and Gothic Architecture ; 
numerous Sermons, Lectures, and Addresses ; Physical Media in Spiritualism ; Art-Criticism, 
800 pp. 8vo, and abridged edition. 500 pp. 12mo; in preparation. Right in Law Customs, the 
substance of lectures delivered to the law students of Columbian College during a period of 
six years. 

Thomas J. Conant, D.D., 1802 , is a native of Brandon, Vt., and a graduate of Middle- 
bury College. He has been Professor of Biblical Literature in the Baptist Seminaries 
at Hamilton and at Rochester, and is an eminent scholar in the department of srxred 
philology. He has been engaged for many years by the American Bible Union (Baptist) 
in preparing a new translation of the Bible. — Mrs. Hannah O'B. Conant, 1812-1805, wife 
of the preceding, and daughter of Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, was also eminent as an Oriental 
scholar, and aided her husband in his Biblical work. She published several works : The 
Earnest Man, a biography of Dr. Judson ; Popular History of English Bible -Traixslation ; 



FEOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 599 

New England Theocracy ; The History of the English Bible. She tranalated also several 
theological works from the tiermau. 

William R. Williams, D. D., 18(>1 , a distinguished Baptist clergyman, was born in the 

city of New York, and has losM '1 rhf-re all his life. He graduated at Columbia College in 
1822, at the head of his class; studied Ijiw with Peter Jay, and practised for one year; entered 
the ministi-y in 1831, and became the same year jMstor of the Amity Street Baptist Church, 
•which position he still li «lds (1872). He has visited Europe three times. He has published 
Religious Progress, discourses on the developiueiit of Christian character; Lectures on the 
Lord's Prayer ; Miscellan-v^j^a v ^^"'""^ containing a number of addresses and discourses. He 
has also published several special Sermons. 

Henry Clay Fish, D. D., 1820 , was born in Halifax, Vt. He has been pastor of the 

First Baptist Church, Newark, N. J., since 1850. He has published the following works: 
Primitive PiPty Revived; History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence; Pulpit Eloquence 
of tlie Nineteenth Century; Select Discourses from the French and German, translated; The 
Price of Soul Liberty ; The Adult's Catechism ; Harry's Conversion ; Harrys Conflicts, etc. 

John Bowling, D. D.. 1807 , an eminent Baptist preacher, was born in England, but 

has been settled in the United States since 1832. His principal works : A Vindication of the 
Baptists from the Charge of Bigotry; History of Romanism ; A Defence of the Protestant 
Scriptures; An Exposition of the Prophecies concerning the Second Coming of Christ; 
Power of Illustration; Judson's Offering; etc., etc. The sale of Dr. Dowling'a works, particu- 
larly of that on the History of Romanism, has been very large. 



Dr. Eddy. 

Daniel C. Eddy, D. D., , Pastor of the First Baptist Church, 

Fall Kiver, Mass., is the author of a large number of religious books which 
have been very popular. 

Dr. Eddy graduated at the New Hampton Theological Institution, in 1845. Since that 
time he has ministered in Lowell, Boston, Philadelphia, and Fall River, in each place with 
great acceptance and success. His publications have been as follows: Young Man's Friend, 
first series, 200,000 copies sold ; Young Man's Friend, second series ; Europa,. or Scenes in the 
Old World, octavo, 550 pp., 20,000 copies sold; The Bunnan Apostle, a brief life of Judsou ; 
The Percy Family, 5 vols., for children; Walter's Tour in the East, 6 vols., for children; 
Roger Williams and the Baptists, historical; The Unitarian Apostasy, historical; The Hero- 
ines of the Missionary Enterprise; The Young Woman's Friend, or Women of the Bible; 
Fugitive Sermons, (The Men for the Times, Respect for the Aged, Claims of our Country, 
The Bible, The Worth of Life, etc., etc.) ; Angel Whispers, a book of consolation for mourners, 
100,000 copies sold ; Waiting at the Cross, a book of Devotion. 

Rev. W. W. Everts, 1815 , was born in Granville, N. Y., and graduated at Hamilton 

College, in 1839. He preached in New York city, 1839-1850; in Louisville. Ky., 1832-1859; 
in Chicago, 1859 to the present time. In each of these places he has built up large and 
prosperous congregations. He is the author of the followiuii works: Pastor's Hand-Book ; 
Life and Thoughts of Foster; Bible Manual; Bible School Reader; Bible Prayer Book; Free 
Manhood; Childhood, — its Promise and Training; also, a number of Tracts. 

Pharcellus CnuRcn, D. D., 1801 . was born in Seneca, N. Y., and was educated at the 

Hamilton Institution, now Madison University. He has been pastor at Poultuey, Vt., Provi- 



600 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

dence, R. I., New Orleans, Rochester, and Boston ; was editor and proprietor of the New Tork 
Chronicle, 1855-1865. In 1865, he retired from all public engagements, with a view of de- 
voting his remaining years to literary labor. His published works are the following : The 
Philosophy of Benevolence; Religious Dissensious, a piize essay in behalf of Christian 
Union ; Moral Power in the Church, and Pentecost, two works growing out of the exten- 
sive revival of religion in his church at Rochester ; Memoir of Mrs. Theodosia Dean, mis- 
sionary to Siam ; Mapleton, or More Work for the Maine Law, a temperance tale of 500 pp.; 
Seed-Truths, or Bible Views of Mind, Morals, and Religion. The work last named is regarded 
by the author as the crowning work of his life, and is the slowly matured fruit of thirty- 
five years of meditation and study. Dr. Church is living in retirement at Tarrytown, N. Y. 

Robert Tcrnbull, D. D., 1809 , pastor of the First Baptist Church, Hartford, Conn., 

was born in Scotland, and was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. He 
has been pastor, 1833-1S72, in Danbury, Conn., Detroit, Mich., Boston, and Hartford, Conn. 
He is the author of the following works : The Theatre; Olympia Morata ; Vital Christianity, 
translated from Vinet ; The Genius of Scotland ; The Genius of Italy; Vinet's Miscellanies; 
Pulpit Orators of France and Switzerland ; Life-Pictures ; Theophany, or the Manifestation 
of God in Christ ; Christ in History. The volume last named is his most important work, 
and is in high repute. 

JoHX J. Butler, D. D., 1814 , Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Homiletics in the Theo- 
logical Seminary of Butler College, Lewistown, Me., was born in Berwick, Me.; graduated 
at Bowdoin College in 1837, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1844; was Professor 
of Sacred Literature in Whitestown Theological Seminary, 1844-1854 ; Professor of System- 
atic Theology in the Theological School at New Hampton, N. H., 1854-1870 ; and in 1870 
was elected to his present position. His principal publications are : Natural and Revealed 
Theology ; Commentary on the Gospels ; Commentary on the Acts, Romans, First and Second 
Corinthians. He has been for twenty-five years assistant editor of the Morning Star, the 
denominational organ of the Free Baptists. 

Joseph Bantaed, D. D., 1810 , was born in New Tork city. He graduated at the New- 
ton Theological Institute in 1835. He has been pastor, successively, of Baptist churches in 
Salem, Mass.; Boston; West Cambridge; New York ; Pawtucket, R. I.; Worcester, Mass.; 
and Paterson, N. J., where he now is. He was chosen President of the National Theological 
Institute and University, at Washington, D. C, but finding that it required of him the duty of 
financial agent, he resigned. He is author of the following works : PrisciUa, an historic tale ; 
Novelties of the New World ; Romance of American History ; Tragical Scenes in the History 
of Maryland; The American Statesman, a memoir of Daniel Webster; Wisdom, Wit, and 
Whims of the Ancient Philosophers ; Plymouth and the Pilgrims ; The Young Observer 
Series, or Natural History, 8 vols. ; Story Truths, 4 vols. ; Sunday -School Question Books, 
12 vols. 

He is brother of John Banvard, the inventor of the large Panoramas. 

Rev. James Madison Pendleton, D. D., 1811 , was born in Spottsylvania County, Va., 

but spent his boyhood and youth in Kentucky. He was pastor of the Baptist Church in 
Bowling Green, Ky., 1837-1857; Professor of Theology in Murfreesboro, Tenn., 1857-1862; 
pastor in Hamilton, 0., 186'2-1865 ; at Upland, the seat of the Crozers, near Chester, Pa., since 
1865. Dr. Pendleton has published the following : Three Reasons why I am a Baptist ; Short 
Sermons on Important Subjects; Church Manual ; A Treatise on the Atonement. 

He has written largely for the religious papers of his denomination for the last thirty 
years. During the discussions of Henry Clay's Emancipation schemes, in 1849, Dr. Pendle- 
ton, in company with John C. Young and the Breckinridges, entered heartily into the 
measure, and advocated it with great ability. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 601 

Jeremiah B. Jeter, D. D., 1802 , one of the ablest and best known representatives of 

the Baptist Clmrcli in tlie Southern Statos, Wiis born in Bedford County, Va. He begaa 
preaching at the age of twenty, with only such education as he could pick up by his own 
unaided efforts. After preiiching to country congregations for fourteen years, 1822-1834, he 
went to Richmond, where, with the exception of three years in St. Louis, he has labored 
ever since. Dr. Jeter resigned his pastoral charge in 1870, and since that time has edited 
the Religious Herald. He has publi:ihed the following works : Memoir of Mrs. Henrietta 
Sheech, the first American female missionary to China ; Memoir of Rev. Andrew Broaddus ; 
The Mirror, a delineation of different classes of Christians ; Campbeliism E.^iimined ; Camp- 
bellism Re-examined ; The Soul, or the Impression of Divine Truth on a Candid Mind. He 
has published also a large number of tracts, pamphlets, magazine articles, etc. 

John L. Dagg, D. D., , of Georgia, is a leading theologian among the Baptists of 

that State. He has published the following works : A Manual of Theology ; Moral Science; 
English Grammar. 

P. H. Mell, D. D., 1814 , Vice-Chancellor of the University of Georgia, is a native of 

that State. Part of his college education was obtained at Amherst, Mass. The following 
are his publications: Baptism in its Mode and Subjects ; Predestination and the Saints' Per- 
severance ; Corrective Church Discipline ; A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. 

Robert Fuller, D. D., 1S08 , the distinguished Baptist divine of Baltimore, was born 

at Beaufort, S. C. After practising law for several years, he became a clergyman in the 
Baptist Church. He has been established in Baltimore since 1847. Dr. Fuller is considered 
one of the ablest men in his denomination. He has published the following works : Ser- 
mons ; Correspondence with Bishop England upon the Roman Chancery ; Letters ; An Argu- 
ment on Baptist Close Communion ; The Psalmist, in connection with Dr. Jeter. 



Dr. MeClintock. 

John McClintock, D. D., LL.D., 1814-1870, late President of Drew 
Tlieologieal Seminary, was one of the leading writers in the Methodist 
Church in the United States. His great work. Theological and Biblical 
Cyclopedia, projected and, before his death, nearly completed, by him and 
his colleague, Dr. Strong, is a monument of scholarship and theological 
learning. 

Dr. MeClintock wa.s a native of Philadelphia, and a graduate of the University of Pennsyl- 
mia, 1835. He was for a time Professor in l)ickin^^<)n College, Carlisle ; edited the Methodist 
' 'Uarterly Review for eight years ; was pastor of St. Paul's Church (Methodist) in New York ; 
had charge of the American chapel in Paris during the civil war; and after bis return, be- 
came, in 1867 the leading Professor in the Drew Theological Seminary, established in tliat 
year, in which position he remained until his death. Besides his contribirtions to periotlical 
b ferature, and his important series of Greek and Latin school-books, published in connection 

th Dr. Crooks, he was engiiged for the last few years of his life in a Theological and Biblical 
Nclopa-dia. The materials were nearly completed, and three volumes of it had been pub- 
lished, at the time of his death. The work is one of signal ability and scholarship, and even 
in its unfinished state is a literary monument to the author's fame. 

James Strong, D. D., 1822 , Professor of Exegotics and Theology in the Drew Theologi- 
cal Seminary, Madison, N. J., was born in New York city. He graduated at the Wesleyan 
University, 1844, at the head of his class. After teaching for a few years, ho returned to 
61 



602 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Flushing, L. I., where he devoted himself mainly to philological studies and to literature. 
In 1858 and '59 he was prominently engaged in the Troy University, and on the failure of 
that project returned to Flushing. In 1868 he was appointed Professor in Drew Seminary, in 
which position he still remains. Although a layman, he has received the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Divinity on account of his eminent attainments in theological science. 

Dr. Strong's publications are as follows: An English Harmony and Exposition of the 
Gospels ; A Greek Harmony of the Gospels ; An Abridgment of the English Harmony ; 
Questions on the same ; Sunday School Question Books, 5 vols. ; Epitomes of Greek, Hebrew, 
and Chaldee Grammar, 3 vols. ; Compendium of Theology ; The True Mean ; and lastly, in 
conjunction with Dr. McClintock, An Encyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiasti- 
cal Literature. He has also ready for the press An Exhaustive Concordance of the English- 
Bible. 

George Peck, D. D., 1797 , an eminent preacher and divine of the Methodist Church, 

has published the following works: The Scripture Doctrine of Perfection ; Why are You a 
Methodist? What Constitutes the Divine Rule of Faith and Practice? Slavery and the Epis- 
copacy ; Lives of the Apostles and Evaugelists ; Appeal from Tradition to Scripture ; Lectures 
to Young Men ; Wyoming, its History, Stories, Incidents, and Romantic Adventures ; Manly 
Character ; Our Country, its Trials and Triumphs ; Early Methodism. Dr. Peck was Princi- 
pal of the Oneida Conference Seminary, 1835-1839; Editor of the Quarterly Review and of 
the Book Concern, 1840 ; Editor of the Christian Advocate, 1848-1852. 

William Nast, D. D., , besides editing for more than thirty years the Christian 

Apologist, and translating, revising, and abridging a large number of works on Methodism, 
has written A Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical Commentary on the New Testament. 

Jonathan Townlet Crane, D. D., 1819 , was born at Connecticut Farms, near 

Elizabeth, N. J. He gi'aduated at Princeton, 1843, and entered the ministry of the Metho- 
dist Church. He was Principal of the Pennington Seminary, 1849-1858 ; was pastor in 
Jersey City, Haverstraw, Newark, Morristown, and Hackettstown, 1858-1868 ; in 1868 was 
made Presiding Elder of the Newark District, which office he now, 1872, holds. Dr. Crane, 
besides many articles in the Methodist Quarterly and in the religious papers, has written 
the following works: An Essay on Dancing; The Right Way, or Lectures on the Ten Com- 
mandments ; Popular Amusements ; The Arts of Intoxication. 

Abel Stevens. 

Abel Stevens, D. J)., LL. D., 1815 , Editor of the Methodist, has 

made larger contributions than any living writer to the History of Metho- 
dism, and has written more probably than any one else of the larger books 
on the catalogue of the Book Concern. 

Dr. Stevens was born in Philadelphia, and educated at the Wesleyan University, Middle- 
town, Conn. He was pastor for several years in Boston, and in Providence, R. I. ; and has 
travelled twice in Europe. His greatest work has been as writer and editor for his denom- 
ination, and especially in giving tone and character to the literature of the Book Concern, 
of which for many years he was editor. Dr. Stevens's own publications have been the fol- 
lowing: Introduction of Methodism into the United States; Progress of Methodism in New 
England ; History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 4 vols.; History 
of the Religious Movement in the Eighteenth Century called Methodism, 3 vols. ; Century 
of American Methodism ; The Women of Methodism ; The Life and Times of Nathan Bangs ; 
Church Polity ; The Preaching required for the Times; Pastor's Stories; Sketches and Inci- 
dents ; Tales from the Parsonage ; The Great Reform. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 603 

Daniel "Wise, L.D., 1813 , editor of the Sunday-School Advocate of the Methodist 

Church, was born and educated in Portsmouth, England, lie emigrated to America in 1S33, 
and after teaching for a few years, entered the Methodist ministry in 1840. He was pastor 
successively in Ilingham, Quincy, Ipswich, Boston, Springfield, Nantucket, Providence, 
Fall River, and New Bedford. He edited the Sabbath-School Messenger, 1838-1843; the 
Ladies' Pearl, 1841-42; New England Diadem, 1847-48; Zion's Herald, 1852-1850; The 
Sunday-School Advocate, 1856 to the present time; also. The Sunday-School Teacher's 
Journal, 1860-1868. He also edited for some years, under the name of Francis Forrester, 
Forrester's Boj's' and Girls' Magazine. 

Dr. Wise has published the following books: Life of Lorenzo Dow; History of London, 
for children; Lovest Thou Me? Christian Love; The Path of Life; The Youug Man's Coun- 
sellor; The Young Ladies' Counsellor; My Uncle Toby's Library, 10 vols.; The Benevolent 
Traveller; The Scotch Widow ; Infant Teacher's Manual; Life of Zwiugli; Cottage on the 
Moor; McGregor Family; Glen Moor Stories, 5 vols.; Lindendale Stories, 5 vols. ; Sacred 
Echoes; Convert's Counsellor; Pleasant Pathways, etc. The sale of these books has been 
large: Path of Life, 60,000; Young Man's Counsellor, 70,000; Youug Ladies' Counsellor, 
70,000, etc. The circulation of the Sunday-School Advocate has increased under his editor- 
ehip from 80,000 to 350,000. 

J. H. TiNCEXT, D.D., 1832 , the general Sunday-School Superintendent of the Metho- 
dist Church, was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was educated mainly in the Lewisburg Uni- 
versity, and the Newark Wesleyan Institute. After preaching some years in Illinois, he 
went abroad, visiting Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. On his return, he established the 
Chicago Teacher, and l)egan the system of Normal Institutes for training Sunday-School 
teachers. So great was his success in this work, that he was appointed General Agent of 
the Methodist Sunday-School Union, and Editor of all its Sunday-School journals. Dr. 
Vincent's publications have been as follows: Little Footprints in Bible Lands; Pictorial 
Bible Geography ; Two Years with Jesus ; A Year with Moses ; The Berean Series of Ques- 
tion Books. 

William P. Strickland, D.D., 1809 , a distinguished clergyman of the Methodist 

Church, was born in Pittsburg, and educated in the University of Ohio, at Athens. He was 
for four years an agent of the American Bible Society, and afterwards became associate 
editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal, New York. His publications have been 
numerous, and are held in high estimation : A History of the American Bible Society; A 
History of the Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church; The Genius and Mission of 
Methodism; A Manual of Biblical Literature; The Astrologer of Chaldea; Christianity 
demonstrated by Facts; The Life and Times of Bishop Asbury; Pioneers of the West; Old 
Mackinaw, or the Fortress of the Lakes; Sketches of Western Methodism; The Backwoods 
Preacher ; Taylor's Seven Years' Preaching in San Francisco, etc. 

Randolph S. Foster, D.D., LL.D., 1820 , President of Drew Theological Seminarj', was 

born at Williamsburg, 0., and graduated at Augusta College, Ky., in 1837. He preached in 
the Ohio Conference, 1837-1849. From 1849 to 1868, he preached in and around New York, 
except three years, in which he was President of the Northwest University, Illinois. In 
1868, he became Professor in Drew Seminary, and in 1870 he became its President, on the 
death of Dr. Clintock. Dr. Foster has written the following works : Objections to Calvinism ; 
Christian Parity ; The Ministry Needed for the Times. 

Daniel P. Kidder, D.D., 1815 , a distinguished Methodist writer and preacher, was 

born at Darien, Genesee County, N. Y. He prepared for college chiefly at the Genesee Wes- 
leyan Seminary at Lima ; spent one year at Hamilton Cullege ; and graduated at Middletown, 
Conn., in 1836. In 1837, he went as a missionary to South America, and afterwards gave 
the results of his observations and experience there in a valuable volume, Brazil and the 



604 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Brazilians, prepared jointly by him and Rev. J. C. Fletcher. On returning from thia 
mission, he labored from 1840 to 1844 in the New Jersey Conference. He wrote also Mor- 
monism and the Mormons, and translated a work on Clerical Celibacy, written by a member 
of the Brazilian government. In 1844, he was put in charge of the Sunday-School depart- 
ment of the Methodist Book Concern, in which he labored for twelve years. Here he revised, 
edited, and compiled eight hundred Sunday-School library books, besides editing the Sunday- 
School Advocate, and preparing the standard Catechisms of the Church. In 1855, he was 
called to the chair of Practical Theology in the Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, 111., 
where he labored for fifteen years. Among the fruits of his professorship at Evanston are 
two important works, Homiletics, and The Christian Pastorate, both of which hold a high 
rank in theological literature. In 1871, he became Professor in the Drew Theological Sem- 
inary, at Madison, N. J. 

Dr. Whedon. 

Daniel Denison "Whedon, D.D., LL.D,, 1808 , official editor of 

the Methodist Quarterly Review, is known most favorably among theolo- 
gians by his work on The Will. 

Dr. Whedon was born in Onondaga, and was graduated at Hamilton College, 1828. He 
■was Professor in the Wesleyan University, 1832-1842; in the University of Michigan, 1842- 
1850; has been editor of the Methodist Quarterly, by successive re-elections, from 1856 to 
the present time, 1872. Dr. Whedon has published a work on The Freedom of the Will ; 
Public Addresses, Collegiate and Popular; and has in press A Commentary on the New Tes- 
tament, 5 vols. 

Joseph Cross, D.D., 1813 , a Methodist preacher and writer, was born in England, 

but has been resident in the United States since the age of twelve. Publications : Life and 
Sermons of Christmas Evans, from the Welsh ; Headlands of Faith ; Pisgah Views of the 
Promised Inheritance; The Hebrew Missionary; Prelections on Charity; A Year in 
Europe, etc. 

Charles F. Deems, D.D., 1820 , a native of Baltimore, and a graduate of Dickinson 

College, has been Professor in the University of North Carolina, and in Randolph-Mason, 
and President of Greensboro College and of Centenary College. He has contributed to tho 
Southern Methodist Quarterly, edited five volumes of the Southern Methodist Pulpit, and is 
the author of Triumphs of Peace and other Poems, Devotional Melodies, Home Atlas, Life 
of Dr. Clarke, and a volume of Sermons. 

Davis W. Clark, D.D., 1812 , is a native of Maine, and a prominent preacher and 

writer among the Methodists. He has written much for the Methodist Quarterly Review, 
and in 1852 was appointed editor of the " Western Book Concern." Works : A Treatise on 
Mental Discipline ; Death-Bed Scenes ; Life and Times of Bishop Hedding. 

Charles Collins, D.D., 1813 , a native of Maine, a Methodist preacher and writer, is 

chiefly distinguished by his labors as an educator. He was President of Emory and Henry 
College, Va. ; then of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. ; and for many years past has been 
President of the State Female College near Memphis, Tenu., in all of wliicli Jnstitntions 
he hiis been eminently successful. He has contributed to the Methodist journals, and has 
written a work, Methodism and Calvinism Compared. 

Lerot M. Lee, D.D., , of the Methodist Church, has published the following 

works : The Great Supper not Calvinistic ; Advice to a Young Convert ; Life and Times of 
Rev. Jesse Lee. 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 605 

Davtd Rice McAnallt, D. D., 1810 , o" the Methodist Church, was bom in Tennessee. 

He was for eight years President of Eiujt Tennessee Female Institute, in Knuxville. In 
1851, he wiis appointed editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate. lie has published Martha 
Laurens Ramsay, a biography ; Life and Times of Rev. William Patton, and also of Rev. 
Samuel Patton, D. D. ; A Hymn Book ; A Sunday -School Manual. 



President Haven. 

Erastus Otis Haven, D. D., LL.D., 1820 , President of the North- 
western University at Evanston, near Cliicago, is one of the most eminent 
writers and educators in the Methodist Church in the United States. 

President Haven was born in Boston. He graduated at the Wesleyan University, Middle- 
town, Conn., in 18'12: was Teacher and then Principal in Amenia Seminary, New York, 1843- 
1853; Professor in the University of Michigan, 1853-1856; Editor of Zion's Herald, Boston, 
1856-1863; President of the University of Michigan, 1863-1869; President of Northwestern 
University, from 1869 to the present time. The university last named is the most richly 
endowed institution of the Methodist Church in the United States. 

"While editing Zion's Herald, Dr. Haven was a member of the Massachusetts State Board 
of Education, 1858-1863 ; a member of the State Senate, 1862-3, and Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Education. In this position he secured the passage of several wise and liberal 
laws, — creating an Agricultural College, endowing the Institute of Technology, enlarg- 
ing the scope of Normal Schools, and aiding the Museum of Natural Science, of which 
Agassiz is the head. The impulse which he gave to the University of Michigan, during the 
six years of his Presidency, borders on the marvellous. 

Dr. Haven's main work, besides that of an executive kind, has been as a preacher and a 
lecturer. His printed works are the following : Rhetoric ; The Young Man Advised ; Pillars 
of Truth. 

H. N. McTteire, D.D., 1824 , Bishop of the Methodist Church South, and resident in 

Nashville, Tenn., published, in 1859, a book entitled Duties of Christian Masters. He was 
born in South Carolina, and graduated at Randolph-Mason College, Virginia, in 1844. He 
has written much for the Methodist periodicals. 

Richard Abbey D. D. , a prominent minister in the Methodist Church, has pub- 
lished the following works : Apostolic Succession ; End of Apostolic Succession ; Baptismal 
Demonstrations; Church Government ; Creed of All Men; Divine Assessment for the Sup- 
port of the Ministry ; Ecclesiastical Constitution ; Strictures on Church Government ; Ecce 
Ecclesia ; Diuternity. 

Samuel D. Baldwin, A.M., , President of the Soule (Methodist) Female College, 

is the author of two works : Armageddon, or the Overthrow of Romanism and Monarchy ; 
and A Life of Mrs. Sarah Norton. 

James 0. Andrew, 1794-1S71, the well-known patriarchal Bishop of the Methodist Church 
South, was a native of Augusta, Ga. The close of his life was spent in Alabama. He was 
the author of two books : Family Government ; Miscellanies. 

Thomas 0. Summers, D. D., , of the Methodist Church, and editor of the Nashville 

Christian Advocate, is the author of a large number of works: Baptism ; Golden Censer; 
Holiness; Refutation of Paine; Seasons, Months, and Days; Sunday-School Teacher; Sun- 
day-School Speaker ; Talks Pleasant and Proli table ; Scripture Catechism, etc. 
51* 



606 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

Leonidas Rosser, D.D., , a minister of the Methodist Church, ha.s published the 

following works : Baptism, its Nature, Obligation, Mode, Subjects, and Benefits ; Regenera- 
tion ; Open Communion ; Recognition in Heaven. 

James Challen. 

Bev. James Challen, 1802 , was one of the earliest and most con- 
spicuous converts to the doctrines of Alexander Campbell, and has contrib- 
uted largely to the literature of his Church. 

Mr. Challen was born at Hackensack, N. J., but removed early to Lexington, Ky., where 
he was educated at Transylvania University, under the presidency of Dr. Holley. Mr. Chal- 
len began preaching in the Baptist Church, and was settled many years at Cincinnati. In 
1850 he became pastor of the church of The Disciples in Philadelphia, and remained there 
about eight years, when he settled in Davenport, Iowa. He is at present living in Cincin- 
nati. 

Mr. Challen has written the following works : The Gospel and its Elements : Christian 
Evidences ; Baptism in Spirit and in Fire ; Christian Morals ; Frank Elliot ; The Cave of 
Macpelah and Other Poems ; Idrasil, or The Tree of Existence ; The Island of ihe Giant 
Fairies. He has edited Challen's Juvenile Library, 41 vols., and published for several years 
a monthly called The Ladies' Christian Annual. 

William J. Barbee, M. D., 1816 , was born in Winchester, Clark County, Ky., but from 

early infancy till twenty-one years of age, resided in Paris, Bourbon County, Ky. He was 
educated at Miami University, Oxford, 0.; studied medicine with Dr. Drake of Cincinnati, 
0. ; and commenced the practice of his profession in that city in 1836, immediately after his 
graduation. Having practised medicine for about ten years, he gave up the profession and 
directed his attention to teaching. For twenty-five years past he has been enthusiastically 
devoted to the cause of education, and has had charge of several institutions of learning in 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. 

Dr. Barbee is also a minister of the Christian Church, a religious body popularly known 
as Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites. 

His works are the following: Physical and Moral Aspects of Geology; First Principles of 
Geology, presenting the science in its elements, and showing its application to Mining, 
Agriculture, etc. ; The Cotton Question, a treatise on the Production, Export, Manufacture, 
and Consumption of Cotton ; The Scriptural Doctrine of Confirmation without the Laying 
on of Hands, as presented in the Apostolic Times ; The Life, Discourses, and Epistles of the 
Apostle Peter, (in press.) 

Rev. William Thomas Moore, 1832 , editor of the Christian Quarterly, Cincinnati, 

was born in Henry County, Ky., of Scotch-Irish extraction. He graduated at Bethany Col- 
lege, in 1858, with the valedictory. He entered at once the ministry of the Christian Church, 
and has preached at different places. He is at present pastor of the Central Christian 
Church, Cincinnati, which has just erected a new edifice at a cost of Sl25,0(i0. He edits at 
the same time the Christian Quarterly, the leading representative of the doctrines and pol- 
ity of his denomination. Mr. Moore, besides his editorial labors, has published the following: 
Yiews of Life; A. Campbell's Lectures on the Pentateuch; Living Pulpit of the Christian 
Church, edited; Christian Hymn Book, and Hymnal, edited in conjunction with others. A 
number of the hymns in this collection were written by Mr. Moore. 

Rev. Isa.ao Errett, 1820 , editor of the Christian Standard, Cincinnati, was boni in 

New York city, his parents being among the earliest converts to the doctrines propounded 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 607 

by Alexander Campbell. Mr. Errett has been dependent on his ovra exertions for support 
since he was ten years old. All his acquisitions of kuowkdge have been made in the faco 
of disadvant-ages. He commenced preaching at Pittsburg, in 18i0. Since that time, he has 
preached in miiny places in the West, and with uniform success. lie commenced The 
Christian Standard in 1SG6, at Cleveland. In ISGS, he was elected President of Alliance Col- 
lego, and wont there with his paper, but finding that the Standard did not prosper there, he 
resigned the College, and took his paper, in 1S69, to Cincinnati, where it has become the 
leading weekly periodical of the Church which it represents. 

Mr. Errett is the author of the following works : A Discussion of Spiritualism with Joel 
TifiTany; A Brief View of Missions ; First Principles, or the Elements of the Gospel; "SValka 
about Zion, a Search after the Landmarks of Primitive Christianity. He has in preparation 
A Commentary on First and Second Corinthians ; Short Sermons to Bereans ; A Tolume of 
Reviews, Lectures, Addresses, and Sermons. 

Mr. Errett was associated for some years with Alexander Campbell in editing the Millen- 
nial Harbinger. 

President Milligan. 

Eev. Egbert Milligan, 1814 , President of the College of the 

Bible in the Kentucky University, at Lexington, has shown extraordinary 
executive ability in organizing the University of which he i.-3 so conspicuous 
an ornament, and has made several valuable contributions to the theologi- 
cal literature of his Church. 

President Milligan was born in the Connty of Tyrone, Ireland. He emigrated to this 
country in 1S18, and settled in Trumbull County, 0. He graduated at Wiushington College, 
Pa., in 1840. He was Professor in Washington College, 1840-1851 ; in the State University 
of Indiana, 1851-1854; in Bethany College, W. Ya., 1S54-1859; President of Kentucky Uni- 
versity, 1859-1866; and in 1866, having put the several colleges which compose the Univer- 
sity into operation, he retired from the general management, and became President of that 
department known as the College of the Bible, corresponding to the Theological School La 
other institutions. 

President Milligan's early religious training was in the Associate Presbyterian Church. 
Having adopted the principles of the Campbellites, he entered the ministry of that Church 
in 1844, but has not preached much. His main work has been that of a teacher. 

While Professor at Bethany, he was for several years co-editor with Mr. Campbell of the 
Millennial Harbinger. 

He has published the following works : The Scheme of Redemption ; Reason and Revela- 
tion; The Great Commission. He has in press A Brief Treatise on Prayer; A Commentary 
on the Epistle to the Hebrews. These works show the author to be a man of varied learn- 
ing and of scholarly tastes, as well as earnest religious convictions. 

James Titp.ner Barclay, M.D., 1807 , was born in Hanover County, Va. He studied 

Latin and Greek at the Staunton Academy, and graduated M. D. at the University of Penn- 
sylvania, 1826. In 1830 he bought Mr. Jefferson's place, Monticello, and lived there for a 
time, but sold it out and went to Scottsville, on the James River. While living at Scotts- 
ville, he became a convert to the views of Alexander Campbell, and connected himself with 
the new society. In 1850, he was sent out as a missionary to Jerusalem by the Missionary 
Society of his Church. After laboring in this mission for three years, ho returned to 
America to complete the education of his children, and then returned to Pnli'.«»tine and re- 
mained there until the mission was discontinued during the war. After the war, he was 
for two years Pmfossor in Bethany College. He then retired to Lawrence County, Ala., 
where he still lives, giving hia time to preaching and to literary pursuits. 



608 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Dr. Barclay has written mtich for the Millennial Harbinger and other periodicals of his 
Church, and while in Jerusalem ho v/roto several pamphlets, both in English and Arabic. 
His chief literary work, however, is The City of the Great King, admitted by the most emi- 
nent authorities to be one of the best works yet produced in regard to Jerusalem. 

Saeah Barclay Johnson, 1837 , only daughter of the preceding, was born in Albe- 
marle County, Ya., and was educated at home by her father. She accompanied her parents 
on their mission to Palestine, and rendered valuable assistance, especially by her pencil and 
brush — most of the illustrations in Dr. Barclay's book being by her hand. She was married 
in Washington city, in 1856, to J. Augustus Johnson, Consul-General of Syria, then on a 
visit to America, and she has remained in Syria many years, spending her winters in Beirdt 
and her summers on Mount Lebanon. Mrs. Johnson has published an exceedingly popular 
book. The Hadji in Syria. 

RoEEET EicHARDSON, , President of Bethany College, has published a work in 2 

vols., 8vo, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Embracing a Tiew of the Origin, Progress, and 
Principles of the Religious Reformation which he Advocated. Prof. Richardson was a dis- 
ciple and associate of Mr. Campbell, and the work gives a clear, well written account of the 
topic named in the title. While earnest in the presentation of his own views, the author is 
commendably fair and charitable towards others, and gives abundant evidence of being a 
cultivated and scholarly gentleman. 

Bishop Mellvaine. 

Et. Eev. Chajrles Petit McIlvajije, D.D., LL.D., D. C. L., 1798- 

, Bishop of Ohio, is known in literature chieflj by his popular work 

on the Evidences of Christianity. 

Bishop Mellvaine is a native of Burlington, N. J., his father, Joseph Mellvaine, having 
been a Senator of the United States from New Jersey. Bishop Mellvaine graduated at 
Princeton College in 1816, and studied theology in the Seminary there, being both in the 
College and the Seminary a classmate of Dr. Charles Hodge. Bishop Mellvaine was succes- 
eivcly rector of a church in Georgetown, D. C, Chaplain and Professor of Ethics in the U. & 
Military Academy at West Point, Professor of the Evidences of Revealed Religion in the 
"University of the city of New York, and rector of a church in Brooklyn. In 1832 he became 
Bishop of Ohio, and he has remained in that position to the present time. His works are 
the following: Evidences of Christianity ; The Sinner's Justification before God; The Holy 
Catholic Church; No Priest, No Altar, No Sacrifice, but Christ; A Word in Season to Can- 
didates for the Ministry ; The Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church as to Confirma- 
tion ; Chief Danger of the Church ; The Truth and the Life, etc. Bishop McHvaine is a 
very popular speaker and writer. His work on The Evidences has had a large sale, and all 
his works have been well received. He belongs to what is called the Low-Church party. 

Bt. Rev. Manton Eastburn, T>. D., 1801 , Bishop of Massachusetts, has published 

Lectures on Philippians, and a number of Sermons and Charges. 

. Rt. Rev. William Ingraham Kip, D.D., 1811 , Bishop of California, was bom in New 

York City, and graduated at Yale, 1811. He studied theology in the General Seminary of the 
Episcopal Church, New York ; was rector of St. Peter's, AH)any, 1838-1853 ; and in 1853 
was elected Missionary Bishop of California. He is the author of the following works: 
Lenten Fasts, 13 editions ; Double Witness of the Church, 19 editions ; Early Conflicts of 
Christianity, 5 editions; Catacombs of Rome, 5 editions; Early Jesuit Missions in North 
America, 5 editions ; Christmas Holidays in Rome, 13 editions ; Domestic and Religious Life 
in Italy ; Recantation, or The Confessions of a Convert to Romanism. 



FKOM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 609 

Rt. Rev. John Williams, D. D., LL. D., 1817 , Bishop of Connecticut, waa born at Deer- 
field, Mass., and graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, in the class of 1835. He was Tutor 
in Trinity College, 1837-1840; Assistant Minister in Middletown, Conn., 1841-42; Rector of 
St. George's, Schenectady, N. Y., 1842-1848; President of Trinity College, Hartford, 1848- 
1853 ; consecrated as Assistant Bishop of Connecticut in 1851 ; became Bishop of that Diocese 
in 1865. 

Bishop "Williams is the author of a work on The Miracles, various Sermons, Addresses, An 
Episcopal Charge, and numerous Review Articles; and editor of Ilawkstone and Bishop 
Harold Browne on the XXXIX. Articles. 

Rt. Rev. Alfred Lee, D. D., 1807 , Bishop of Delaware, was born at Cambridge, Mass., 

and graduated at Harvard, 1827. He studied law and practised; studied theology in the Gen- 
eral Theological Seminary, New York; was rector at Rockdale, Del., 1838-1841; Bishop, 
1841 to the present time. Bishop Lee has published the following works : Life of the Apostle 
Peter ; Life of St. John ; Treatise on Baptism ; The Harbinger of Christ ; Memoir of Susan 
Allibone. 

Bishop Odenheimer. 

Kt. Rev. William Henry Odenheimer, D.D., LL. D., 1817 ^ 

Bishop of New Jersey, has made a special study of Canon Law, and is an 
authority in his church in matters pertaining to church order. He is also 
remarkable for his earnestness and spirituality as a Christian pastor. 

Bishop Odenheimer was born in Philadelphia; he graduated at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, 1835, with the valedictory; at the General Theological Seminary, N. Y., 1838; was 
rector of St. Peter's, Philadelphia, 1840-1859 ; Bishop of New Jersey, since 1859. 

Bishop Odenheimer is the author of the following publications : The Origin and Compila- 
tion of the Prayer-Book; The Devout Churchman's Companion; The True Catholic no Ro- 
manist ; Thouglits on Immersion ; The Young Churchman Catechised; The Private Prayer- 
Book; Jerusalem and its Vicinity; Essay on Canon Law; The Sacred Scriptures, the In- 
spired Record of the Glory of tlie Holy Trinity ; The Church's Power in her Controversy with 
Antichrist; Canon Law the Church's Evangelical Safeguard against the Lawlessness of Self- 
Will, — an Episcopal charge ; The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega of 
Prophecy. 

William Bacon Stevens, D. D., LL. D., 1815 , Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Penn- 
sylvania, was born at Bath, Me. He spent his early youth in Boston ; studied medicine at 
Dartmouth, and afterwards at the Medical College of South Carolina. He was ordained in 
the Episcopal Church in 1844, and the same year became Professor of Belles Lettres, Ora- 
tory, and Moral Philosophy in the University of Georgia. He was rector of St. Andrew's 
Church, Philadelphia, from 1848 to 1862. In 1862, he became Bishop of Pennsylvania. He 
has published A History of Georgia, 2 vols., 8vo; The Parables of the New Testament Prac- 
tically Unfolded ; The Bow in the Cloud ; Home Service ; The Lord's Day, etc. 

Rt. Rev. Frederic Dan Huntinqton, D.D., 1819 , Bishop of Central New York, is a 

native of Hadlcy, Mass., and a graduate of Amherst, 1839. He was originally a Unitarian 
preacher, and in 1842 was appointed Professor of Christian Morals in Harvard University. 
Having changed his religious views, he entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church, and 
in 1869 became Bisliop of Central New York. Bishop Huntington is an eloquent speaker, 
and a writer of great elegance and beauty. His publicatiou.s, though not numerouH, Jiavo 
had a large circulation, and have made u deep impression on tho public mind. Ue hits pub> 

20 



610 AMERICAN LITEEATURE. 

lished Lessons on the Parables ; Sermons for the People ; and a large niunber of addresses 
and sermons on special occasions. 

Rt. Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D. D., 1818 , a son of Dr. S. H. Cox, and Bishop 

of the Episcopal Church in Western New York, is a graduate of the University of the City 
of New York, 1S38. and ranks high as a scholar and a man of letters. It was a fancy of his 
own to change the spelling of the family name. His chief publications are the following: 
Advent, a Mystery, a dramatic poem ; Athwold, a Romaunt ; Saint Jonathan, the Lay of a 
Scald ; Saul, a Mystery ; Halloween ; Athanasion ; Christian Ballads ; Sermons on Doctrine 
and Duty ; Impressions of England. 

Horatio Socthgate, D. D., 1812 , was born in Portland, Me., and graduated at Bow- 

doin College, in the class of 1832. He studied theology at Andover, became an Episcopalian, 
and was ordained in 1834, and consecrated Bishop of Constantinople. He resigned that office 
in ISoO, and since that time has been rector successively of St. Mark's Church, Portland, and 
of the Church of the Advent, Boston. He has published the following : A Narrative of a 
Tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia; A Narrative of a Visit to the 
Syrian Church of Mesopotamia; The War in the East, 1855; Practical Directions for the 
Observance of Lent ; Parochial Sermons, etc. 

Dr. Stone. 

John Seely Stone, D. D., 1795 , Senior Professor of the Episcopal 

Theological School at Cambridge, Mass., is regarded as the most accom- 
plished expounder of Christian doctrine in the American Episcopal Church. 
His publications have not been numerous, but have uniformly been of a 
high order of merit, and his Sermons, both in matter and style, are worthy 
of being accounted classical. 

Dr. Stone was born in West Stockbridge. Mass., the son of a Berkshire farmer. He en- 
joj-ed in early life only suchtmining as is afforded by the district school and the country 
farm. After passing his boyhood and early manhood in the fields and the workshop, he be- 
gan his education in earnest at a time in life when most young men consider theirs already 
finished. He studied at Hudson Academy, and then in Dr. Rudd"s Classical School at Eliza- 
beth, N. J. After completing the curriculum at Union College, Schenectady, in 1823, he 
pursued his theological studies in The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal 
Church, in New York City, and was ordained January 4, 1826. Previous to his ordination 
he had served for a while as Tutor in Geneva (now Hnbart) College. 

Since entering the service of thp church. Dr. Stone has filled many important charges. 
His first rectorate was that of St. Micbael's Cliurch, Litchfield, Conn. From this he was 
called to the charge of All Saints' Church, Fredprick. Md. He then became Associate 
Rector of Trinity Church. New Haven. Rector of St. Paul's Church. Boston, Christ Church, 
Brooklyn, St. Paul's Church, Brookline, Mass. In 1862 he was chosen Professor and Gris- 
wold Lecturer in the Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia, and in ISfi" made Professor 
and Dean of Faculty in the Episcopal Theological School of Massachusetts, at Cambridge. 
While rector of Christ Church, Brooklyn, Dr. Stone was also Secretary and General Agent 
of the Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge, and a member of the Publishing 
Committee of the American Tract Society. 

Dr. Stone's works are the following: A Life of Bishop Griswold ; A Life of Dr. Milnor: The 
Living Temple; The Christian Sacraments; Tlie Divine Rest (a work on the Sabbath); The 
Contrast (between the evangelical and the tractarian systems). 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 611 

In all these works — as well as in his numerous sermons, which have been the spiritual 
nourishment and delight of thousands of loving hearers of the "Word — Dr. Stone exhiliits 
acuteness and learning, and an unusual command of good, sound English. His writings are 
at once simple and elegant, the choice fruits of an eminently vigorous and cultured mind. 

Dr. Stone is not an orator, in the strict sense of the word, but his sermons, by their sub- 
stance and their diction, and also by their true Christian spirit, entitle him to a place among 
the foremost divines of the Protestant Episcopal Church. So far as church distinctions are 
concerned, Dr. Stone may be classed with the Low-Church or Evangelical party, although 
he is in no sense a jiarty-leader, still less an extremist. His work has been in the Church 
and with the Church, and he himself is an earnest, whole-souled minister of Divine truth. 

Fr.'^xcis "Wharton, D.D., LL.D., 1820 , was born in Philadelphia, and gradnated at 

Yale, in 1839. He practised law for several years, and then entered the ministry of the Epis- 
copal Church. He was Professor of English Literature in Kenyon College, Ohio ; then rector 
of St. Paul's, Brookline, Mass. Besides several law books. Dr. "Wharton has written State 
Trials of the United States, large Svo; The Silence of Scripture, a series of Lectures; 
Treatise on Theism and the Modern Sceptical Theories. 

Richard Newton, D.D., , rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Philadelphia, is 

the author of a large number of books for the young. Dr. Newton has a remarkable gift for 
preaching to children, and he has been in the habit for many years of preaching a sermon 
to the children of his Sunday-school once a month. The twelve sermons thus prodiiced each 
year form an annual volume, and in this way his series of books has been produced. They 
are the best works of their kind. The following are the principal titles: Rills from the 
Fountain of Life; Best Things; King's Highway; Bible Blessings; Safe Compass; Great 
Pilot ; Bible Jewels ; Giants and How to Fight Them ; Jewish Tabernacle ; Bible Wonders. 

Rev. "W. R. Huntington, 1838 , was born in Lowell, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, 

1859. He was class poet in 1859, and <}> ^ ic poet in 1870. He has been rector of the Epis- 
copal church at "Worcester since 1862. He has published the following : The Mystery of the 
Trinity Paralleled in Nature ; American Catholicity ; The Church Idea, an Essay towai-da 
Unity ; The Churchmanship of Charity ; and two Sunday-School Question Books. 

Jesse Amos Spencer, D. D., 1816 , was born at Hyde Park, N. Y., and graduated at 

Columbia College, in the class of 1837. lie entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church. 
He was Professor of Latin in Burlington College, N. J., in 1849-50; Professor of Greek in 
the College of the city of New York in 1869. Prof. Spencer has edited six of Arnold's clas- 
sical series of school-books. Besides these, he has written The Christian Instructed in the 
"U'ays of the Gospel and of the Church, a volume of Sermons; A History of the English 
Reformation, 18mo; Sketches of Travels in the Holy Land; A History of the United 
States, etc. 

E. Edwards Beaedslev, D. D., 1808 , is a native of Faiifield County, Conn , the son of 

a farmer in affluent circumstances. lie was graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, in 1832, 
taking the highest honors of his class, and afterwards, for two years, was tutor in the col- 
lege. He was ordained to the ministry of the Episcopal Church in 1835,and he has had the 
rectorship of two churches, one in Cheshire, and one in New Haven, which latter he has held 
continuously since 1848. He also had for a few years the Principalship of the Episcopal 
Academy of Connecticut, at Cheshire. In his present charge at New Haven he has been 
abundant in parochial labors, and at the same time has not been idle with his pen. His 
principal work is the Historj' of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the first settle- 
ment of the Colony to the present time, in 2 vols., 8vo. He has another histfricul work of 
equal value now nearly finished, The Life and Correspondence of the Rev. Sajuuel Johnson, 



612 AMERICAN LITEKATUKE. 

D. D., Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at Strat- 
ford, Conn., and First President of Columbia College, New York. During a recent visit to 
England, Dr. Beardsley added to his valuable original materials for this work. Besides 
these two works, he has published a large number of Addi-es.ses and Sermons in pamphlet 
form. 

Dr. Beardsley's principal work. The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, is the 
fruit of original research, and is a most valuable contribution to the general history of the 
country. The historical spirit is manifest also in his occasional addresses and sermons, and it 
is very evident that he has a special vocation for the class of works which he has under- 
taken. 

" Dr. Beardsley possesses the historic temper, the calm and conscientious spirit which 
considers facts as sacred, and reverently deals with truth. • Ilis work is a true history in its 
careful examination of authorities, its clear statements of events, and its lucid and thor- 
oughly readable style." — American Churchman. 

Dr. Tyng. 

Stephen Higginson Tyng, D. D., 1800 , rector of St. George's, 

N. Y., has been for many years an acknowledged leader in what is known 
as the Low-Church party in the Episcopal Church. 

Dr. Tyng was born at Newburyport, Mass., and graduated at Harvard, in the class of 1817. 
He was settled in Georgetown, D. C, 1821-1823 ; in Prince George County, Md., 1823-1829 ; 
in Philadelphia, at St. Paul's, 1829-1833, and at the Epiphany, 1833-1845 j and at St. George's, 
in New York, from 1845 to the present time, 1872. 

Dr. Tyng early acquired a national reputation by his abilities as a preacher and his ear- 
nestness and activity in religious iiffairs, and he has been constantly adding to it through a long 
life of useful labor. His multiplied parochial duties have not prevented him from making 
substantial contributions to the religious literature of the day. The following is a list of 
his publications : Forty Years' Experience in Sunday-Schools ; Memoir of Dr. Bedell ; Me- 
moir of Rev. E. P. Messenger; A Father's Memorial to the Rev. Dudley A. Tyng; Recollec- 
tions of England ; Lectures on the Law and the Gospel ; The Israel of God ; Sermons preached 
at the Epiphany; Christ is All, a course of Sermons; Fellowship with Christ; Christian 
Titles, a Series of Meditations ; The Rich Kinsman, or The History of Ruth ; The Captive 
Orphan, or Esther Queen of Persia ; The Spencers, a work of religious fiction ; Guide to Con- 
firmation, etc. 

Rev. Dudley Atkins Tyng, 1825-1858, son of the preceding, was born in Prince George 
County, Md., and graduated in the University of Pennsylvania, in the class of 1843. He was 
assistant to his father in St. George's church. Now York, and afterwards had charge succes- 
sively of parishes in Columbus, Ohio ; Charlestown, Va., and in Philadelphia. He was killed 
by an accident from a threshing-machine. He was a preacher of uncommon ability, and 
his sudden death in the midst of a career of great usefulness and promise produced a pro- 
found impression. His publications were as follows : Vital Truth and Deadly Error ; Chil- 
dren of the Kingdom, or Lectures on Family Worship ; Our Country's Troubles. His dying 
words were, " Stand up for Jesus \ " 

Samuel Osgood, D.D., 1812 , was born in Charlestown, Mass., and graduated at Har- 
vard in 1832, and in the Cambridge Divinity School in 1S35. He was pastor of a Unitarian 
Church in Nashua, N. H., 1837-1841; in Providence, R. I., 1841-1849; in New York city, 
1849-18(59. In 1809-1870 he travelled in Europe. On his return to New York, he entered the 
ministry of the Episcopal Chuixh. lie lives in New York, and is without parochial charge, 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 613 

although he has been invited to several and he preaches often. His change of church rela- 
tion n)aile no alienation between him and his old friends, the Unitarians. 

Dr. Osgood's contributions to religious literature have been numerous. The following are 
the chief: History of the Passion; Human Life; Studies in Christian Biography; The 
Hearthstone; God with Men; Mile-Stones iu our Life-Journey; Student Life; Christian 
Worship; American Leaves; Letters from Europe; numerous special sermons and ad- 
dresses. He translated Olshausen on the Lord's Passion, and De Wette's Practical Ethics. 
He has edited ditferent religious papers, and has written for the North American Review, 
Christian Examiner, Bibliothcca Sacra, Putnam, Knickerbocker, Harper, etc. 

Rev. George Jones, 1801-1870, Chaplain in the United States Navy, was born near York, 
Pa. He graduated at Yale in 1823, and was ordained to the ministry in the Episcopal Church 
in 1831. He became Chaplain in the Navy in 1832, and continued In the service until bis 
death. He wiis an accomplished and scholarly man, and he availed himself eagerly of the 
opportunities of travel and research which his position offered. His published works are 
the following: Sketches of Naval Life; E.\cursions to Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, and 
Baalbec, from the United States ship Delaware; Moral Philosophy; Life Scenes from the 
Four Gospels ; Life Scenes from the Old Testament. The two volumes last named are espe- 
cially excellent and valuable. 

Natuaxiel Smith Richardson, D. D., 1810 , a distinguished clergyman of the Epis- 
copal Cbuixh. He is a native of Middlebury, Conn., and a graduate of Yale of the class of 
1834. He is the proprietor and editor of the American Quarterly Church Review. His other 
publications are: Pastors Appeal on Confirmation; Reasons Why I am a Churchman; 
Churchman's Reasons for his Faith and Practice; Reasons Why I am not a Papist; Evi- 
dences of Natural and Revealed Religion; Sponsor's Gift, etc. 

Rev. Josiah Swett, 1814 , was born in Claremont, N. H., and graduated at Norwich 

University, in the class of 1837. He took orders in the Episcopal Church in 1847. He has 
written English Grammar; Manual of Family Prayers; The Firmament in the Midst of the 
Waters, etc. 

William M.Reynolds, D. D., 1812 , President of Illinois State University, was born 

in Fayette County, Pa. He studied theology at Gettysburg, and took orders in the Lutheran 
Church; Professor in Pennsylvania College, 1833-1850; President of Capital University, 
1850-1857 ; and of Illinois State University, 1857. In 1861 he became an Episcopalian. 
He has been actively engaged in establishing and editing The Evangelical Magazine, 1840; 
The Literary Record, 1845 ; and The Evangelical Review, 1849. To the last named he has 
contributed more than forty articles. He has published also, A Discourse on the Swedish 
Churches; American Literature, an Address; Discourse before the Historical Society of 
the American Lutheran Church ; and several other addresses on special occasions. 

Rev. Robert A. Hallam, 1807 , was born in New London, Conn., and graduated at 

Yale, 1827. He has been rector in Meriden, Conn., 1833-1837 ; and in New London from 
1837 to the present time. He has published Lectures on the Morning Prayer ; Lectures on 
Moses, and a volume of Sermons. 

Robert Lowell, D. D., 1816 , was born in Boston and graduated at Harvard, 1S33. lie 

entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church in 1842; ministered in Bermuda, 1842-1843; 
in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, 1843-1847 ; after various other service, took charge of St. 
Mark's School, Newark, N. J., in 1869. The following are his publications: Five Letters to 
a Roman Catholic Clergyman ; Tho New Priest in Conception Bay ; Poems. 
52 



614 AMERICAN LITERATUEE. 

Archbishop Kenriek. 

The Most Eev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, D. D., 1797-1863, late 
Archbishop of Baltimore, was esteemed among all denominations, Protes- 
tant and Catholic, as an amiable and scholarly man, of great and varied 
learning, particularly in the department of dogmatic theology. Though 
earnestly devoted to the work and the interests of his own Church, he was 
not wanting in charity and kindness to men of other creeds, as the writer 
of the present volume takes pleasure in testifying from his own experience. 

Archbishop Kenriek was born in Dublin, and educated in Rome, at the college of the Pro- 
paganda, where, with his remarkable powers of mind, he became distinguished for his literary 
and philological acquisitions and for his mastery of theology. In 1821, having received priest's 
orders, he came to Kentucky, and was made President of the Seminary at Bardstown. He 
by no means, however, confined himself to the duties of his professorship, but, from time to 
time, took an active part in the trying missionary labors of that new diocese. After eight 
years spent in such labors, he was recommended to Rome by the First Provincial Council 
of Baltimore, 1829, as Bishop of Philadelphia, and was consecrated accordingly in June, 1830. 
Under circumstances, at first, of peculiar difficulty, he administered his diocese, for twenty- 
one years, with a wisdom and firmness which, associated as they were with a quiet holiness 
of life and unique attainments in ecclesiastical learning, gave him, in the hearts of Catholics, 
the foremost place in the American episcopate, while his unassuming conduct and the ami- 
able courtesy of his manners attracted the respect, and (in many cases) the atfection of his 
Protestant fellow-citizens. 

On the death of Archbishop Eccleston, in 1851, Bishop Kenriek was transferred to the 
archdiocese of Baltimore, where he remained until his death, in 1863. 

In the midst of the toils and cares of the mission and of the episcopate, with an unruffled 
calmness and self-command, which no interruption could disturb, Archbishop Kenriek 
steadily pursued the congenial labors of authorship. To say nothing of his frequent contri- 
butions to the weekly organ of his diocese, he produced works of standard value in the 
departments of theology, of controversy, and of Biblical literature. His two greatest works 
are in Latin : Theologia Dogmatica, in 4 vols., and Theologia Moralis, in 3 vols., 8vo (since 
reprinted at Mechlin), works in which theological knowledge, soundness of judgment, and 
a tendency to a wise moderation, abhorrent of all extremes, were equally conspicuous. 

Although by temper disinclined to controversy, lie was induced to reply to a popular work 
by Bishop Hopkins (of the Protestant Episcopal Church), in a small volume, which, several 
times reprinted and enlarged, and stripped withal of every mark of its controversial origin, 
has become among Cathcdics a standard Treatise on the Supremacy of the Pope. 

Far more attractive than controversy — more attractive, perhaps, even than theology — 
to the mind of Archbishop Kenriek, was the study of the Holy Scriptures. Having acquired, 
at the Propaganda, a competent knowledge of Hebrew and the kindred languages, he pur- 
sued the work of Biblical criticism and interpretation at the same time with theology. The 
first fruit of these favorite studies was a new version of the Psalms, with a Commentary 
rich in wisdom and diction, which he kept by him, many yeai-s, in manuscript. After his 
transfer to the older and well-organized archiepiscopal see, which much increased his leisure 
for study, he completed and published his translation' of the New Testament, with a large 
body of notes, of a practical character, in which vast patristic and biblical learning is kept 
modestly in the background. The Archbishop did not rest from his labors until he had 
published, with the strongest approbation of the American Episcopate, the whole of the 
Bible in a new version, with a full cozniuentary. He was the author, besides, of many volumes 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 615 

of more temporary interest, of sermons, and of contributions to the periodical press, which 
have not, as yet, been collected. 

In a literary point of view, Archbishop Kenrick's English writings are marked by a flow- 
ing sweetness and richness of style (due, in part, to his habit of writing so much in Cicero- 
nian Latin), which give better evidence, at first fight, of the Fenelon-like gentleness of his 
temper and manners, than of the earnestness of his convictions and the strength and sub- 
tility of his reasoning powers. 



Archbishop Hughes. 

The Most Kev. John Hughes, D. D., Archbishop of New York, 1797- 
1864, was one of the most conspicuous and energetic of the Catholic prelates 
in the United States. His writings were chiefly controversial, the most 
memorable being the Debates between himself and Dr. John Breckinridge, 
carried on in one of the Philadelphia newspapers, and afterwards repub- 
lished in book-form. 

Archbishop Hughes was born in County Tyrone, Ireland. He emigrated to America in 
1817, being then twenty years of age, and was engaged for a time as assist;\nt florist or gar- 
dener. The thirst for knowledge and an almost passionate desire to enter the priesthood 
led liim to make great labors and self-denials, and secured him at length the needed educa- 
tion at Mt. St. Mary's College, Emmetsburg. lie was ordained a priest in 1825, and stationed 
in Philadelphia. He became Assistant Bishop of New York in 1838; Acting Bishop, in 1839; 
and Archbishop, in 1850. Among his publications is A Lecture on Christianity the Only 
Source of Moral, Social, and Political Regeneration, delivered by request of Congress in tho 
Representatives Hall, at Washington. He had a controversy witli Erastus Brooks on The 
Church Property Question, and the letters on both sides were collected and published in a 
volume. Numerous other pamphlets and addresses were published by him at different times. 
His life, however, was one of action rather than of authorship, and the strong impress he 
left upon his generation was due mainly to his talents and activity in executive adminis- 
tration. 

In 1861, at the beginning of the war, he and Thurlow Weed were selected by the Govern- 
ment to go abroad on a confidential mission, to counteract the supposed designs of the 
Southern agents in Europe. 

Archbishop Spalding. 

The Most Kev. Martin John Spalding, D. D., 1810-1872, late Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, made several important contributions to theological 
literature, mostly of a controversial kind. 

Archbishop Spalding was born near Lebanon, Marion County, Ky. He was educated, first 
at St. Mary's Seminary, in Marion County, and then at St. Joseph's, Bardstown, and finally 
at the College of the Propaganda, in Rome, where, at the close of his course, he maintained 
for seven hours a public dispute in Latin on certain theses in theology and canon law, nnd 
received by acclamation the degree of Doctor of Divinity. On returniuK to the United States, 
in 1834, he was made pastor of St. Joseph's Church, and then President of St. Joseph Sem- 
inary, in Bardstown; in 1843 he was called to the Cathedral in Louisville; in 1S48 he was 
ma<le titular Bishop of Leugone, as assistant to Bishop Flaget of Louisville ; and in ISfij, he 
succeeded Kenrick as Archbishop of Baltimore. In tho administration of liis archdiocese 



616 AMERICAN LITEEATUEE. 

he displayed great activity, more than twenty new churches having been erected during hia 
brief administration. The second Plenary Council held in the United States was convened 
by him in 1866, containing forty-seven Archbishops and Bishops. In the (Ecumenical Coun- 
cil, he was one of the most zealous advocates of the dogma of Papal Infallibility. 

The following is a list of his chief publications : Sketches of the Early Catholic Missions of 
Kentucky; The Life and Labors of Bishop Flaget; A Review of D'Aubigne's History of the 
Reformation, 1 vol., 12mo, which afterwards swelled into 2 vols., 8vo, of about 1,000 pp., 
embracing the History of the Protestant Reformation in all Countries ; Miscellanea, a collec- 
tion of Reviews, Essays, and Lectures on about fifty ditferent subjects, 2 vols., Svo ; Lectures 
on the Evidences of Catholicity. In addition to these works he has written numerous 
pastoral letters and a great number of leading articles in various Catholic newspapers and 
periodicals, besides various introductions to works translated and published under hia 
auspices. In 1860 he delivered, in the Smithsonian Institution, a course of three lectures on 
the Origin, Elements and History of Modern Civilization. 

Most Rev. John Baptist Purcell, D.D., 1800 , Archbishop of Cincinnati, was born in 

the County of Cork, Ireland. He came to the United States in 1818; entered the Ecclesias- 
tical Seminary of Mt. St. Mary's, Md., in 1820, and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, Paris, in 1824, 
and was made a priest in 1827. On returning to America he taught and ministered for a 
while at Mt. St. Mary's, and in 1833 was made Bishop of Cincinnati, where he was afterwards 
made Archbishop. He had, in 1837, a seven days' controversy — an oral discussion —with 
Alexander Campbell, which was reported and published in a large volume ; had also, in 1868, 
a written discussion with Thomas Vickers, entitled The Roman Clergy and Free Thought; 
and has issued numerous Pastorals. 

Bishop England. 

Et. Eev. John England, D.D., 1786-1842, long Bishop of Charleston, 
S. C, was held in high esteem among his fellow-citizens of all denomina- 
tions. His writings have been published in eight large volumes, and form 
a valuable part of the Catholic theological literature of the United States. 

Bishop England was born in the city of Cork, Ireland. His studies were pursued, and 
his youth and priesthood passed, in his native land, where, already admired for his elo- 
quence and earnestness of character, he did his part in advancing the piety and promot- 
ing the civil and religious liberty of his suffering fellow-countrymen. In 1820, he was ap- 
pointed to the See of Charleston, S. C, then constituted a bishopric. He arrived in America 
at the close of that year. Here his work was emphatically that of an apostle and evangelist, 
and he entered upon it with a zeal proportionate to the task. Characterized by good execu- 
tive and financial ability, he organized his diocese successfully, building churches, and 
inviting various religious orders within its limits. He was conspicuous in his own juris- 
diction for what he encouraged throughout the United States, the frequent summoning of 
the clergy to conventions for purposes of deliberation and legislative action. He founded a 
seminary for the education of ecclesiastics, and incorporated with it a classical and scientific 
academy, in both of which institutions of learning he himself gave instructions. He estab- 
lished the United States Catholic Miscellany, a weekly periodical of merit, aud supplied its 
columns with a large amount of original matter, acute in its reasoning and attractive in 
style. Through his iufluence over the community of Charleston heajvakened fresh interest 
in the classics. He infused new life into the Philosophical and Literary Association, of 
which he continued an honored and useful member till death. He rallied about hUn 
the chivalry of Carolina in an Anti-dwelling Society, of which Gen. Thomas Pinckney, of 
revolutionary fame, was the venerated President, and, through his personal activity, pre- 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 617 

vented several hostile encounters. In his pastoral relations he was kind and intelligent, 
liberal of care for the poor and feeble, and, particularly in seasons of yellow fever, always 
prompt to assist the sick. 

His writings, which have been collected and arranged under the direction of his successor, 
Bishop Rpynolds, are comprised in eight volumes, royal octavo, published in Baltimore in 
1849. Of these some are dogmatic and polemic, others historical, besides sermons and a few 
miscellaneous productions of independent literary interest. Their chief excellence, prob- 
ably, is a singular directness and clearness of statement, combined with an Irish intensity 
of feeling and quickness of wit that is likely to carry the sympathies of the reader with 
much that is said. Certain controversial passages are remarkable for clearness of argument 
and shrewdness of thought. In places where there is room for calmer eloquence, the Bishop's 
breadth of mind and correctness of judgment are sufficiently discerned. On topics which 
admit of rhetorical display flights of imagination not seldom occur. As an orator and 
public speaker Bishop England is described, by those who had the happiness to hear him, 
as very eflFective, his delivery not falling short of his disposition of the matter of the 
discourse. 

Archbishop Bayley. 

The Most Eev. James Eoosevelt Bayley, D. D., 1814 , Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, has long been known as one of the most scholarly- 
prelates in the Catholic Episcopate in the United States. 

Archbishop Bayley was born in New York city, and graduated at Trinity College, Hart- 
ford, 18.35. On becoming afterwards a Catholic, he pursued his theological studies at Paris 
and Rome. He was ordained Priest in 1844; was Tice-President and then President of St. 
John's College, at Fordham ; became Bishop of Newark in 1853 ; and Archbishop of Balti- 
more in 1872. 

Archbishop Bayley's publications have been as follows : Brief Sketch of the Early History 
of the Catholic Church on the Island of New York ; Memoirs of Rt. Rev. S. G. Brute, 
Bishop of Yiucennes. He was editor of the New York Freeman's Journal, 1846-47, and he 
has published sevei-al Pastorals. 

Levi Silliman Ives, D.D., LL.D., 1797 , was born at Meriden, Conn. He became an 

Episcopal clergyman in 1824, and Bishop of North Carolina in 1831. In 1852, he became a 
Catholic, and soon after wrote a work. The Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism. 
He afterwards went back to the Episcopal Church. In addition to the work named, he 
has written A Manual of Devotion ; The Apostle's Doctrine of Fellowship ; The Obedience 
of Faith; Humility a Ministerial Qualification, etc. 

Xavier Donald McLeod, 1821-1865, was the author of several works, historical and reli- 
gious, showing scholarship and literary ability of no common order. 

Mr. McLeod wiis born in the city of New York. lie was educated an Episcopalian, and in 
1845 took orders in that Church. He preached for a time in his native State, and afterwards 
in North Carolina, under Bishop Ives. He left the ministry of the Episcopal Church at the 
same time with his diocesan, and became a Catholic. After this he spent some years in 
literary life, and finally, in 1860, he was admitted to the priesthood of the Catholic Church 
by Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati. He was accidentally killed by the passing of a railway 
train, at Sedansville, near Cincinnati, while on an errand of mercy to a poor sick woman of 
his charge. 

The following are Mr. McLeod's principal publications : Pynnshurst, His Wanderings and 
Ways of Thinking; The Bloodstone; Lescure, or The Last Manpiis; Life of Sir Walter 
Scott ; Life of Mary Queen of Scots ; Biography of Fernando Wood ; Devotion to the Blessed 
62* 



618 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 

Virgin Mary in North America. The work last named was written after his entrance into 
the Catholic Church. It is a work showing much historical research. 

Rev. Thomas S. Preston, 1824 , was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated in 1843, 

in Trinity College, of that place. He entered the Episcopal ministry in 1846, changed to 
the Catholic Church in 1849, and became priest in 1850. He is pastor of St. Ann's chuich, 
New York, and Chancellor of the New York Diocese. He has published the following: Ark 
of the Covenant, a life of the Blessed Virgin ; A Volume of Sermons ; Lectures on Christian 
Unity ; Reason and Revelation ; Christ and the Church. 

Rev. Isaac Thomas Hecker, 1819 , popularly known as Father Hecker,and founder of 

the Society of thePaulists in New York, was born and educated in that city, and entered into 
business there with his brothers, in the milling and baking establishment of Hecker & 
Brothers. In 1843 he joined the Brook Farm Association, in West Roxbury, Mass., and after- 
wards spent some time with the Consociate Family, at Fruitlands, Worcester County, Mass. 
Returning thence to New York, he was in 1845 received into the Catholic Church, and desir- 
ing to join the Redemptionists, he passed his novitiate in St. Trond, Belgium, and was ad- 
mitted to the order in 1847. In 1849 he was ordained to tlie priesthood by Cardinal Wiseman, 
in London. In 1851 he returned to New York, and for the next seven years was employed 
in missionary labors in various parts of the United States. In 1858, he and several of his 
associates were released by the Pope from their connection with the Redemptionists, and 
were authorized to form the new association of the Paulists, which has been very active as 
a publication society. 

Rev. a. F. Hewitt, 1820 , was bom at Fairfield, Conn., and graduated at Amherst, 

in 1839. He studied theology one year at East Windsor, Conn., and afterwards with Bishop 
Whittingham, Baltimore. He entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church, and was sent, 
in 1845, to North Carolina. There, under Bishop Ives, he became in 1846 a Catholic, and 
was ordained in Charleston in 1847. In 1858, he took part with others in forming the new 
congregation of Missionai'y Priests known as the Paulists. Since ordination, he has resided 
in Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. He is at present Professor of Phil- 
osophy, Theologj', and Holy Scripture in the Paulist Seminary, New York. 

The publications of Father Hewitt are as follows : The Works of Bishop England, 8 vols., 
edited in conjunction with Dr. Corcoran; Sermons of Rev. F.A.Baker, with aMemoir; Prob- 
lem of the Age, with kindred topics in the Works of St. Augustine ; Light and Darkness, a 
treatise on the Obscure Night of the Soul; Life of Princess Borghese, translated from the 
German ; Life of Abulcher Bisciarah, an Egyptian Student of the Propaganda, translated 
from the Italian ; Life of Mgr. Dumoulin-Borie, from the French. He has written also 
many articles for the True Catholic, Browuson's Review, and Catholic World, and several 
Sermons in the volume of Sermons by the Paulists. 

James Kent Stone, D. D., 1840 , was born in Boston, and graduated at Harvard in the 

class of 1861. lie spent two years studying in Europe, one in Italy, and one at the Univer- 
versity of Gcittingen, in Germany. On returning, he entered the army, but after six months 
of service resigned on account of injuries received. In 1863 he was made Professor of Latin 
in Kenyon College, Gambler, 0. ; in 1867 he became Professor of Mathematics, and soon after 
was raised to the Presidency. In 1868, he left Kenyon to become President of Hobart Col- 
lege, Geneva, N. Y. His religious convictions having undergone a change, he resigned the 
Presidency of Hobart in 1869, and was admitted a few months after to the communion of 
the Catholic Church. In 1870 he published a volume, called The Invitation Heeded, giving 
his reasons for the step which he had taken. The volume had a large sale, passing through 
seven editions the first year. He has joined the Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. 
Paul the Apostle, in New York city, commonly known as The Paulists, of which Father 
Hecker is the head. 



1 



FROM 1850 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 619 

Charles Constantine Pise, D. D., 1802-1866, was born in Annapolis, Md., educated at 
Georgetown College, and ordained to the Catholic priesthood. He was a scholarly man. and 
gave much time to literary pursuits. He wrote A History of the Church from its Establish- 
ment to the Reformation, 5 vols., 8vo; Aletheia, or Letters on the Truth of Catholic Doc- 
trines ; The Acts of the Apostles, done into Blank Verse; Pleasures of Religion and Other 
Poems ; Father Rowland ; Indian College ; Letters to Ada ; Christianity and the Church, etc. 

Peter Fredet, D. D., 1801-1856, was born at Cabazat, France, and educated, first at the 
Theological Seminary of Clermont-Ferrand, and then at Sulpice, Paris, and taught theology 
in France. He came to America in 1831, and was Professor of Theology, Holy Scripture, 
and Ecclesiastical History, in St. Mary's College, Baltimore, until his death. He published 
the following: A Treatise on the Eucharistic Mystery ; Ancient History; Modern History. 
Of the last two, many editions have been printed. 

Bro^A^nson. 

Orestes Augustus Brownson, LL. D., 1803 , editor of Brownson's 

Review, is the ablest and the best known lay writer among American 
Catholics. 

Dr. Brownson has probably gained in celebrity and lost in influence by his frequent 
changes of opinion on cardinal points of doctrine, — having been successively a Calvinistic 
divine, a Universalist, a Deist, again a Calvinist, and lastly a Catholic, and having at each 
stage of belief been a loud and earnest advocate of whatever were his opinions for the time. 
Dr. Brownson has never entered the priesthood of the Catholic Church, but has advocated 
its principles in his capacity as a layman. His ability as a writer and thinker has never 
been called in question. He thinks boldly, and expresses himself with remarkable clearness 
and vigor. His writings have appeared chiefly in the Christian Examiner, the Boston Quar- 
terly Review (begun by himself), the Democratic Review (in which the preceding was 
merged), and Brownson's Quarterly, conducted by himself. 

Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Converted, is a novel describing his own religious expe- 
rience. The Covenant, or Leaves from my Experience, is another work of the same character. 
Since 1844, Dr. Brownson has supported his Review almost single-handed, devoting himself 
chiefly to the advocacy and defence of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, but discussing 
also questions of politics and literature. 

Rt. Rev. John McQii.l, D. D., 1809 , Bishop of Richmond, was ordained a priest in the 

Catholic Church, in 1835. After ministering in Lexington and Louisville, Ky., he was in 
1850 made Bishop of Richmond. Bishop McGill has published the following works : The Life 
of John Calvin, translated from the French : The Origin of the Church of England, as repre- 
Bented in Macaulay's History ; The True Church Indicated to the Inquirer; Our Faith the 
Victory. 

Richard H. Clarke, LL. D., 1827 , was born in 'Washington, D. C, and graduated at 

Georgetown College, in 1846, where also he took, in 1872, the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Laws. Mr. Clarke practised law in Washington, 1848-1864 ; and in New York since 1864. 
He has published Memoirs of a large number of eminent Americans belonging to the 
Catholic Church, and many articles and addresses which have received attention. But liis 
crowning work is a publication just completed, in 1872, in two large 8vo volumes, The Lives 
of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States. 

Rev. Joseph M. Finotti, , of Brookline, Mass., has in press an important work, 

Bibliographia Catholica Americana. 




Index 



Aaron Btirr, trial for high treason, 113. 

Abbott, Abiel, 138; Jacob, 492; John S. C, 
492; Benjamin, Austin, and Lyman, 493. 

Abbey, Richard, 605. 

Abbey, Father, his Will, 52, 

Abed, David, 285. 

Adams, John, 63; Mrs. Abigail, 63; Han- 
nah, 129 ; John Quincy, 236 ; Charles Fran- 
cis, 545 ; William, 577 ; William T., " Oliver 
Optic," 490; Nehemiah, 592. 

Adams and TAberty, a Song, 98. 

After All not to Create Only, by Walt 
Whitman, 377. 

Agassiz, Louis J. R., 549 ; Mrs. A., 550. 

Ayate, name of Whitelaw Reid, 424. 

Agaivam, Simple Cobbler of, 30; Indian 
name for Ipswich, 30. 

Age, The, hy Charles J. Riddle, 418. 

Agnes of Sorrento, by Harriet Beecher 
St owe, 493. 

Ainsworth, Uarry, author of a Psalm-Book, 
29. 

Airs of Palestine, by Pierpont, 149. 

Akers, Mrs. Elizabeth Akers Allen, 368. 

Alcott, William A., 317 ; Louisa May, 499. 

Alden,Jo>e\)h,A73. 

Alderbrooh, by Mrs. Judson, 206. 

Aldrich, Thomius Bailey, 343. 

Alexander, Archibald, 257 ; his description 
of Dr. Stanhope Smith, 132; James, 258 ; 
his notice of Jonathan Edwards, 5o : of 
Witherspoon, 55 ; of Dr. Miller, 265 ; Ad- 
dison, 2r.9; Samuel D., 264. 

Al friend, Frank H., .530. 

Alger, William Rouiiseville, 595. 

Alice G. Zee, name for Mrs. Neal, 207. 

Allan, William, 530. 



Allen, Mrs. Elizabeth Akers, 368; William, 

219. 
Allibone, Samuel Austin, 394. 
All Quiet along the Potomac, question 

of its authorship, 351. 
Allston, Washington, 100. 
Almanac, Poor Richard's, 58. 
Alone, by Marion Ilarlaud, 504. 
Alsojy, Richard, 103. 

Amber Gods, by Mrs. H. E. P. SpofTord, 498. 
American Piography , by Sparks, 212. 
American Conflict, by Greeley, 409. 
American Flag, The, by J. Rodman Drake, 

106, 107. 
American Indians, Schoolcraft's and Cat- 

lin's, 314, 315. 
American in Paris, by John Sanderson, 

178 ; American in London. 178. 
American Mechanic, by James Alexan- 
der, 258. 
American JAteratnre, defined, 25 ; by 

Duyckinck, 393; by Cleveland, 231; by 

Hart, 474, 
American Revieic, The, by Robert Walsh, 

112. 
American Scenery, Bartlett's, 185. 
Ames, Fisher, 85. 
Atnonff tny Pooks, by J. Russell Lowell, 

387. 
Among the Hills, by Whittier, 331. 
Among the 7*i«/>«, by Edmund Kirko, 479, 
Amy Lothrop, name for Anna Warner, 

405. 
Anderson, John .1., 544. 
Andreir, J.inies 0., 605. 
Andrews, Ethan Allen, 255; Stephen P., 

569. 

621 



622 



INDEX. 



A.nfflo-Saxon, by Prof. March, 561. 
A.nnabel Lee, by Poe, 141. 
A.nnals of the American Fulpit, 271. 
A.nne Soleyn, by Boker, 336. 
Anthon, Charles, 255. 
Apple-Tree, Planting of, by Bryant, 334. 
Appleton's Encycloiiedia, edited by Rip- 
ley and Dana, 417. 
Armstrongi, John, 130 ; George D., 583. 
Arrow and Song, by Longfellow, 326. 
Arsenal at Springfield, by Longfellow, 

324. 
Arteimis Ward, a name for Charles P. 

Bi-owne, 433. 
ArtJiur 3Iervyn, by Charles Brockden 

Brown, 111. 
Arthur, T. S., 488. 
Artist Life, by Tuckerman, 389. 
Associate l*ress. New York, 426. 
At'water, Lyman H., 572. 
Audubon, James, 120. 
Aunt Fatty's Scrap Bag, by Mrs. Hentz, 

208. 
Austin, William, 139. 
Authors, Dictionary of, by Allibone, 394. 
Autobiography of an Actress, by Mrs. 

Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie, 497. 
Autocrat of the Sreahfast Table, by 0. 

W. Holmes, 395. 

Baby's Complaint, by Fanny Fern, 399. 
Bache, Alexander Dallas, 246; Franklin, 

247 ; Mrs. Anna, 521. 
Bachinan, John, 249. 
BncTius, Rev. Isaac, 91. 
Bacon, Leonard, 591 ; Delia, 390. 
Bacmx and Greens, by George W. Bagby, 

452. 
Bagby, George, "Mozis Addums," 451. 
Baird, Robert. 318 ; Samuel J., 574. 
Baher, Mrs. H. N., "Madeline Leslie," 513; 

Rev. A. R. Baker, 515; George M., 490, 

580; William M., 581. 
Bald Eagle, description, by Wilson, the 

ornithologist, 119. 
Baldwin, John D., 536; Samuel D., 605. 
Ball, Mrs. Caroline, 359. 
Ballad ofBabie Bell, by T. B. Aldrich, 344. 
Ballon, Ilosea, 299. 
Bancroft, Aaron, 128 ; George, 526. 
Bangs, Nathan, 139. 
Banvard, Joseph, 600. 
Bajifist, Psalms and Hymns, 384-86. 
Barbadoes Gazette, by Keimer, 50. 
Barbara Frietchie, by Whittier, 330. 
Barbee, William J., 606. 
Ba/rher, Johu W., 219 ; Miss C W., 506. 



Barclay, James T., 607. 

Barlou', Joel, 76. 

Barnard, Henry, 468 ; Frederick A. P., 468 ; 

Charles, 487. 
Barnes, Albert, 266. 
Barritt, Metta Victoria, and Frances Fuller 

511. 
Bartlett, John Russell, 317. 
Bartlett's American Scenery, descriptions 

by Willis, 185. 
Bartram, Johu, 104; William, 94; patron- 
izes Wilson, 118. 
Basconi, Henry B., 298 ; John, 562.. 
Bates, S. P., 542. 

Battle of the Kegs, by Hopkinson, 75, 76. 
Baxter, William, 369. 
Bayley, Archbisliop, 617. 
Bay Psalm-BooU, 29, 383. 
Beardsley, G. Edwards, 611, 
Beasley, Frederick, 293. 
Bedell, George T., 138. 
Beecher, Lyman, 275 ; Catherine, 557 ; Henry 

Ward, Edward, Charles, 590. 
Beechenbroolt , by Mrs, Preston, 353. 
Beers, Mrs. Ethel, author of the Picket 

Guard, 351. 
Belcher, Joseph, 298. 
BeUtnap, Rev. Jeremy, 91. 
Bell, John, 250. 

Bellamy, Joseph,^95 ; Mrs. E. W., 506, 
Belles of Williamsburg, by James Mc- 

Clurg, 93. 
Bellows, Henry W., 595. 
Bells, The, by Poe, 141. 
Beneset, Anthony, 86. 
Benjamin, Park, 231. 

Betinett, James Gordon, 407 ; Emerson, 489. 
Benson, Eugene, opinion of Hurlbut, 413. 
Benton, Thomas Hart, 237. 
Berard, Augusta Blanche, 568. 
Berg, Joseph Frederick, 285. 
Berrian, William, 295. 
Bethune, George W., 283. 
Bexilah, by Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, 505. 
Beverly, Robert, 48. 
Bible, English, its literary character, 226. 
Bible in Counting-House, and in Family, 

by Dr. Boardman, 573. 
Biddle, Nicholas, 321 ; Charles J., 418. 
Bigelow Papers, by J. Russell Lowell, 387. 
Bigelotv, Jacob, 251 ; John, 418. 
Bigney, Mark XL, 351. 
Bill and Joe, by 0. W. Holmes, 396. 
Biographical Dictionary, American, by 

Allen, 219; by Blake, 219; by Thomas, 

539 ; by Drake, 539. 



INDEX, 



623 



JSingham, 'Williain, 567. 

Bird, Robert M., 485. 

Birds of America, by Audubon, 120. 

Bitter-Sweet, by Holland, 343, 

Blfickbnrn, William M., 580. 

Black Book, Anne Royall's, 308. 

Black Ban, a nickname of Webster, 234. 

Blackwell, Elizabeth, 557. 

Blackwood's Magazine, opinion of Au- 
dubon, 120. 

Blair, James, President of William and 
Mary College, 46. 

Blake, John L., 219. 

Bledsoe, Albert T., 563. 

Blind Breacher, The, description, by Wil- 
liam Wirt, 114. 

Bloody Tenent of Persecution, by Ro- 
ger Williams, 36 ; washed white, 31. 

Blount, Annie R., 359. 

Boardnian, Henry A., 573. 

Bogart, Elizabeth, 161. 

Boker, George H., 336. 

iiolton, Mrs. Sarah T., 367. 

Bosnian, John Leeds, 130. 

Boston, rhyming description, by Gov. Brad- 
ford, 34. 

Botta, Vincenzo, 537 ; Mrs. Anne C. Lynch, 
367. 

Boudinot, Elias, 95. 

Bouvier, Hannah M., 557. 

Bowden, John, 138. * 

Bowen, Francis, Holmes, 396 ; Eli, 556. 

Botvles, Samuel, 417. 

Boyd, James R., 562. 

Brace, Charles Loring, 465. 

Bracebridge Mall, by Irving, 211. 

BrackenHdge, Hugh Henry, 74; Henry 
N., 127. 

Bradford, William, 34 ; Alden, 130. 

Bradley, Warren Ives, 491. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 40. 

Brainard, John G. C, 108. 

Brandt, Joseph, Life of, 214. 

Brazil and the Brazilians, by Fletcher 
and Kidder, 459. 

Breckinridge, Robert J., 267 ; John, 268. 

Breed, William P., 580. 

Breitniann Ballads, by Charles Q. Le- 
land, 447. 

Bret JIarte, 378. 

Brigg.s, Charles F., 316. 

Bristed, John, 317 ; Charles Aster, 461. 

British Spy, The, by William Wirt, 113. 

Britts, Mrs. Mattie D., 622. 

Brock, Sallie A., 359. 

Brockleshy, John, 513. 

BrodJiead, John R., 537. 



Brooks, James Gordon and Mary E., 109; 

Charles T., 346 ; Edward, 558 ; Nathaniel 

C, 567 ; Maria del Occidente, 109. 
Brook Farm Association, 400, 475. 
Brougham, John, 489. 
Brown, Charles Brockden, 111 ; John W., 

154; Gould, 256; John N., 297; David 

Paul, 245. 
Browne, Charles F., " Artemus Ward," 433 ; 

J. Ross, 459 ; Maria J. B., and Sara H., 

509. 
Brownell, Thomas C, 292. 
Brawnlee, William C, 285. 
Brownson, Orestes A., 619. 
Bryan, Mrs. Mary E., 359. 
Bryant, William CuUen, 333; his opinion 

of Benton, 337 ; John H., 153 ; John D., 

371. 
Buccaneer, a Poem, by R. H. Dana, 147. 
Buckingham, Joseph T., 316. 
Bxtcktail Bards, by Yerplanck, 230. 
Building of the Ship, by Longfellow, 325. 
Bulfinch, Stephen Groenleaf, 289. 
Bull, Squire, and Son Jonathan, 177. 
Bullions, Rev. Peter, 256. 
Bunker Sill Monument, Oration, by 

Webster, 235. 
Burdett, Charles, 195. 
Burgess, George, 292. 
Burr, Aaron, 54; E. F., 592. 
Burleigh, William H., 347. 
Bitmap, George W., 289. 
Burritt, Elislia, 556. 
Burrowes, George, 575. 
Burton, William E., 195. 
BusJi, George, 270. 
Bushnell, Horace, 591. 
Butler, William Allen, 340 ; John J., 600. 
Byles, Mather, 80. 
Byrd, Colonel William, author of Westover 

Manuscripts, 46. 

Calaynos, by Boker, 336. 

Calef, Robert, 45. 

Calhoun, John C, 238. 

Callender, John, 53. 

Calvert, George Henry, 195. 

Cambrioll, in Newfoundland, the seat of Sir 

William Vaughan, 27. 
Campbell, Alexander, 301; Charles, 221, 529. 
Campbellites, 300. 
Carey, Matthew, 123; Henry C, 544. 
Carnahan, James, 265. 
Carruthers, William A., 195. 
Carter, Peter, 491. 
Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 360. 
Cassin, John, 249. 



624 



INDEX. 



Catechism, Political, by Hopkinson, 76. 
Cathedral, The, by J. Russell Lowell, 387. 
Catholic World, opiniou of Howells, 402. 
Catlin, George, 315. 

Cecil JJreenie, by Theodore Winthrop, 476. 
Chadhourne, Paul A., 592. 
Chalhley, Thomas, 49. 
Challen, James, 606. 
Champlin, James T., 597. 
Chandler, Joseph K., 321. 
Chanuing, AVilliam Ellery, William Fran- 
cis, William Henry, Edward T., 287 ; Wal- 
ter, William Ellery, 288. 
Chapin, Alonzo B., 282 ; Edwin H., 596. 
Chaplin, Mrs. Ada, 520; Mrs. Jaue D. C, 

521 ; Jeremiah, 598. 
CJiaracter and Characteristic Men, hj 

E. P. Whipple, 389. 
Charcoal Sketches, by Joseph C. Neal, 

180. 
Charity and the Clergy, by W. II. Ruflf- 

ner, 582. 
diaries the Bold, by Kirk, 529. 
Charlotte Temple, by Susannah Rowson, 

92. 
Cliarms and Counter- CJiarm,s, by Miss 

Mcintosh, 173. 
Chase, Ira, 297. 
Chaticer's JLegende of Goode Women, 

edited by Prof. Corson, 392. 
Chauncey, Charles, 37, 53. 
CJieever, George B., 282 ; Henry T., 282. 
CJieney, Mrs. Harriet V., 524. 
CJiesebro, Caroline, 502. 
Child, Francis J., 391 ; Mrs. Lydia Maria, 

203. 
Cliild's Booh, of the Soul, by Gallaudet, 

319. 
CJiildren's Mour, by Longfellow, 328. 
CJiimney Corner, by Harriet Beecher 

Stowe, 493. 
Chivalry, Modern, by Brackenridge, 74. 
Choate, Rufus, 239. 
CJioules, John Overton, 297. 
Christian Ethics, by Joseph Alden, 473. 
Christian Slave, by Whittier, 330. 
CJiristopJier Caustic, by Fessenden, 99. 
Chuhhuch, Mrs. Judson's maiden name, 205. 
ChurcJi, Benjamin, 94 ; Pharcellus, 599. 
ClacJi, Mrs. Marie Louise, 506. 
Claiborne, John F. H., 530. 
Clap, Thomas, 53 ; Capt. Roger, 39, 
Clarence, by Miss Sedgwick, 172. 
Clark, Lewis Gaylord, 221; Willis Gaylord, 
222; John A., 294 ; Mrs. Mary L., 524; N 
G., 587 ; Davis W., 604. 



Clarke, John, 37 ; McDonald, 154 ; Mrs. Mary 
Bayard, 358 ; Richard H., 619. 

Clarkson, Henry M., 351. 

Class Booh of Foetry, and of Prose, by 
John S. Hart, 474. 

Classical Literature, Compendium of, by 
Cleveland, 231. 

Clay, Henry, 237. 

Clemens, Samuel L., " Mark Twain," 437. 

Clerical Habits and Manners, by Sam- 
uel Miller, 264. 

Clevenger, the sculptor, 339. 

Cleveland, Charles Dexter, 231. 

Clio, a work by Percival, 151. 

Clovernooh, by Alice Cary, 361. 

Coast Survey, A. D. Bache, 246. 

Cobb, Sylvanus, 490. 

Coffin, Charles Carleton, 428 ; Robert Bai-ry, 
429. 

Cogswell, Joseph G., 317. 

Colden, Cadwallader, 51. 

Cole, Mrs. Clara, 358. 

Coleman, Lyman, 273. 

Collier, Joseph A., 576. 

Collins, Charles, 604. 

Colly er, Robert, 696. 

Colton, Calvin, Walter, 318. 

Columbiad, The, by Barlow, 77. 

Columbus, Life, by Irving, 211. 

Colwell, Stephen, 244. 

Comtnercial Bulletiti, Boston, by Curtis 
Guild, 430. 

Composition and Mhetoric, by John S. 
Hart, 474. 

Compound Interest, by Mrs. Victor, 511. 

Comstoch, John L. D., 250 ; Andrew, 257. 

Conant, Thomas J., 598 ; Mrs. Hannah O'B., 
598; Mrs. Helen S., 521. 

Condensed Novels, by Bret llarte, 378. 

Congregational Psalms and Hym ns, 384-6. 

Conquest of Canaan, a Poem, by Presi- 
dent Dwight, 79. 

Conquest of Granada, by Irving, 211. 

Conquest and Self- Conquest, by Miss 
Mcintosh, 173. 

Conrad, Robert T., 190. 

Conservative Jtefor^nation and its The- 
ology, by C. P. Krauth, 585. 

Constitution of the United States, due 
mainly to Madison and Hamilton, 66; 
text-book on, by John S. Ilart, 474. 

Conversation, by Mrs. Kirkland, 201. 

Cooley, Le Roy J., 554. 

Cooke, John Esten, 482; Philip Pendleton, 
483. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 168; Susan Feni- 
more, 171 ; Thomas, 125. 



INDEX. 



625 



Copvoay, George, 221. 

Cornell University, organization under 
A. D. White, 5o5. 

Corner-stone, by Jaco!» Abbott, 492. 

Corson, Prof. Hiram, 392. 

Cotton, Rev. John, Ids history and works, 31; 
his preface to the Bay Psalm-Book, 29. 

Coupon Bonds, by Trowbridge, 403. 

Cousin JLlice, name of Mrs. Xeal, 207. 

Cox, Samuel H., 26S; S. S., 463. 

Coxe, Tench, 124 ; Bishop, 610. 

Cozzens, Frederick S., 190. 

Crafts, "William, 115. 

Crunch, Christopher P., 154. 

Crane, Jehn Towuley, 602. 

Creer/j, I'rof. William R., 569. 

Creaiveii, Mrs. Jiilia P., 353. 

Croaker Jr'apers, by Drake and Halleck, 
144. 

Crooks, George R., 567. 

Cross, Mrs. Jane T., 508 ; Joseph, 604. 

Cruise of the Sutnter and the Ala- 
bama, by Raphael Semmes, 460. 

Cruse, Miss Mary Ann, 506. 

Culprit Jr'ay, Tlie, by J. Rodman Drake,106. 

Cuniniings, Maria, 509. 

Curtis, George W., 400. 

Curwen, Samuel, 80. 

CnsJiing, Caleb, 243; Mrs., 524. 

Cutler, Mrs. Lizzie Petit, 505. 

Cuyler, Theodore L., 57?. 

Dahney, Richard, 106; Richard L., 582. 

JDagg, John L., 601. 

Dalcho, Frederick, 138. 

Dall, Mrs. C. II., 465. 

2)«??a.y, Alexander James, 127; George M., 
244. 

Dalton, John C, 555. 

Dana, J. D., 552; R. H., 147, 477; W. C, 
466; R. B., 242; C. A., 417 ; Mrs. Shindler, 
166. 

Dante, Translation, by Longfellow, 325. 

Dargan, Miss Clara V., 504. 

Dartmouth College Case, argued by 
Webster, 235. 

D'Arusmont, Madam Frances "Wright, 307. 

Davenport, John, first minister of New Ha- 
ven. 37. 



Davidson, Lucretia and Margaret, 110 ; Ro- 
bert, 574. 

Da vies, Samuel, 50; Cliarles, 252. 

Davis, Mrs. Caroline E., 521 ; Matthew L., 
214; Andrew Jackson, 596. 

Davy, Sir Humphrey, his opinion of Frank- 
lin, 61. 

Dawes, Rufus, 222. 

Day, Jeremiah, 135 ; Henry N., 563. 

Daybreak, by R. H. Dana, 147. 

Deaf Mutes, instruction of, by Gallaudet, 
319. 

Dearborn, Gen. H. Ash, 244. 

Death of an Infant, by Mrs. Sigourney, 
303. 

De Botff .Tamos D. B., 2'0. 

Declaration of Independence, &Z; Bi- 
ography of the Signers, 178. 

De Costa, Rev. B. F., 538. 

Deems, Charles F., 604. 

Dehon, Theodore, 138. 

De MiUe, James, 488. 

Democratic I*ai'ty, originally called Re- 
publican, 64. 

Denison, Mr. Charles W., and Mrs. Mary 
A., 509. 

Dentils, Joseph, 112. 

De Peyster, J. Watts, 542. 

Derby, George H., " John Phoenix," 449. 

Deserted Boad, by Road, 340. 

De Vere, M. Scheie, 560. 

Detv, Thomas R., 239. 

Dewey, Orrille, 289. 

Dexter, Henry Martyn, 592. 

Diagnosis of tJie I and the Not I, by 
Addison Alexander, 263. 

Dial, The, by Emerson, 223; by Margaret 
Fuller, 227. 

Dictionary Words, Dr. Cox's fondness for 
them, 268. 

Dictionary of Authors, by S. Austin Ali- 
bone, 394. 

Dictiotuiry, English, by Worcester, 253; by 
Webster, 122. 

Dick Tinto, Frank B. Goodrich, 322. 

Dickson, Samuel Henry, 551. 

Dickinson, Jonathan, 54 ; John, 80 ; Rich- 
ard W., 274 ; Anna, 573. 

Dicdrich K nicJcerbocker, hy Washington 
Irvins, 211. 



Davidson, James Ward, 394; his opinion 

of Gen. Hill, 407; of Mrs. Augusta E. j l>»7/o«, John B., 533. 
Wilson, 506; of Sue Petigru King, 504; J)imi7rj/, Charles. 482 



of W. H. Pock. 481; of Charles Dimitry, 
482 ; of P. H. Hayne, 370; of Mrs. Fanny 
M. Downing, 357 ; of Prof. Bledsoe, 563 ; 
of Helper, .549; of Miss Dupuy,508; of 
Mrs. McLeod, 508. 

53 



Dining in Paris, 178. 
Dinnies, Mrs. Anna Peyre, 356, 
Dinsmoor, Roliert, 103. 
Disciples of Christ, 300. 
Divine Tragedy, by Longfellow, 325, 
2P 



626 



INDEX 



XMjb, John A., 316. 

Doane, George Washington, 292. 

Dod, Albert B., 266. 

Dodd, James A., 558 ; Mary A. H., 164. 

Dodge Cltihf by James de Mille, 4S8. 

Dodge, Maiy Abigail, "Gail Hamilton," 400. 

Dods, John Bovee, 282. 

Doestlcks, Mortimer H. Thompson, 449. 

DnJf Heyliger, by Irving, 211. 

Dollars and Cents, by Anna Warner, 495. 

Donnelly, Mrs. C. 0., 358. 

Doonied Man, by Addison Alexander, 261, 

Dorr, Benjamin, 294 ; Mrs. J. C. R., 509. 

Dorsey, Mrs. Sai-ah A., 507. 

jyOssoli, Margaret Fuller, 227. 

Douglas, Amanda M., 512, 

Dotvling, John, 599. 

Dotvning, Mrs. Fanny Murdaugh, 357; A. 
J., 317. 

DraJee, Benjamin, 221 ; Daniel, 249 ; Joseph 
Rodman, 106, 107 ; Samuel G., Francis S., 
Samuel A., 539. 

Drainer, John W., 551. 

Drayton, William Henry, 87 ; John, 87. 

Dream-'Life, by Ik Marvel, 478. 

Drerv Theological Seminary, 601. 

Drinker, Anna, " Edith May," 162. 

Drum-Taps, by Walt Whitman, 376. 

Duane, William, 113 ; William J., 244. 

Dubose, Mrs. Kate A., 507. 

Duche, Jacob, 80. 

Duffield, George, 269 ; Samuel W., 349. 

Duganne, Augustine J. II., 347. 

Dulles, John W., 575. 

Dumont, Mrs. Julia L., 210. 

Dunglison, Robley, 247. 

Dunlap, WiWiam, 115. 

Dunning, Mrs. A. K., "Nellie Grahame," 
519. 

Dunster, Rev. Henry, President of Cam- 
bridge, revised Bay Psalm-Book, 29. 

Duponceau, Peter S., 122. 

Dupuy, Eliza Ann, 507. 

Ditrbln, John P., 298. 

Dutchman's Fireside, by Paulding, 174. 

Dutch Rejytihl'tc, Rise of, by Motley, 528. 

DuycMncJc, Brothers, 393 ; notice of Anne 
Bradstreet, 40; of George Washington, 
62; of Carlos Wilcox, 108; of W. Whit- 
ney, 242. 

Dwight, Timothy, 78; Henry E.,n6; James 
0., 281 ; Harrison, 282 ; Theodore, 244 ; 
Benjamin W., 588. 

Dyer, Sidney, 348. 

JEagle, Bald, description by Wilson, 119. 
Eastburn, Bishop, 608 ; James Wallis, 108. 



Eastman, Capt. Seth, 216; Mrs. Eastman, 

216; Charles E., 154. 
Ecclesiastical Characteristies,\)y With.- 

erspoon, 69, 
Eddy, Daniel C, 599. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 54 ; Jonathan, Jr , 90; 

Tryon, 573 ; Bela B., 278. 
Edgar Huntley, by Charles Broekden 

Brown, 111. 
Edinburgh JRemeiv, its sneer at American 

authorship, 96. 
Edith May, name for Anna Drinker, 162. 
Eggleston, Edward, 431. 
Elder, William, 461. 
Eldorado, by Bayard Taylor, 456. 
Elenjay, Louise, 504. 

Eliot, John, Apostle to the Indians, his con- 
nection with Bay Psalm-Book, 29 ; his 

Life and Writings, 37 ; Samuel, 541. 
Elizabeth Wetherell, name for Susan 

Warner, 495. 
Ellet, Mrs. Elizabeth F., 541; opinion of 

Madame Le Vert, 466. 
Elliott, William, 115. 
Ellis, George G., 540. 
Ellsworth, Erastus W., 373. 
Elsie Tenner, by 0. W. Holmes, 395. 
Ehnbury, Mrs. Emma C, 208. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 222, 227; Geo. B.,- 

312. 
Emily Chester, by Mrs. Seemuller, 508. 
Emmet, Thomas Addis, 127. 
Emmons, Nathaniel, 135. 
England, Bishop, 616. 
English, Geo. B., 116 ; Thomas Dunn, -347. 
English Bible, its literary character, 226. 
English Grammar, by John S. Hart, 474. 
English JLa.nguage and Literature, 

by Marsh, 254. 
English Eiterature, by John S. Hart, 

474 ; Compendium of, by C. D. Cleveland, 

231. 
English Eiturgy, its literary character, 

226. 
English Traits, by Emerson, 223. 
Episcopacy, beginning in Connecticut, 52. 
Episcopal Hymn and Psalm DooJcs, 

384. 
Erato, poems by W. D. Gallagher,.154, 
Erretf, Isaac, 606. 
Esling, Mrs. C. H., 164. 
Espy, James P., 250. 
Essays Diographical and Critical, by 

Tuckerman, 389. 
Estelle, name for Elizabeth Bogart, 161. 
Eusebius, name of E. D. Q, Prime, in N. Y. 

Observer, 432. 



INDEX, 



627 



Evangeline, by Longfellow, 324. 
JEvans, Hugh Davy, 294; Nathauiol, 94. 
Evenings at Donaldson Manor, by 

Miss Mclntosb, 174. 
Everest, Cliarles W., 165. 
Everett, Alexander H., 231; Edward, 232; 

Charles C, 595. 
Everts, VV. W., 599. 
Ewbauk, Thomas, 252. 
Exploring Expedition, under Wilkes, 

315. 

Fable for Critics, by J. Russell Lowell, 

387. 
Faith Gartney's Girlhood,\)y Mrs. Whit- 

uey, 512. 
Fanny Fern, name of Mrs. Parton, 398. 
Fanny Forrester, natue for Mrs. Emily 

Judsou, 205. 
Family Meeting, The, by C. Sprague, 152. 
Faircfiild, James IL, 594; Sumner Lincoln, 

Mrs. Jane, and Miss Genevieve, 153. 
Farley, Harriet, 311. 
Farnhatn, Eliza W ,309. 
Farrago, Captain, 74. 
Farrar, Eliza \V., 307. 
Fashionable Freacher, by Fanny Fern, 

399. 
Father Abbey's Will, hy John Seccorab, 52. 
Fanst, translated by Bayard Taylor, 457. 
Fay, Theodore S.. 187, 189. 
Federalist, The, by Madison and others, 65, 

67, 69. 
Felt,. lofieph B., 130. 
Felton, Complins C, 254. 
Fern alp Janets of America, by Read, 339 ; 

by GriswoM. 2.",0. 
Female Prose Writers of America, by 

John S. Hart, 474. 
Female Quixotism, by Mrs. Tabitha Ten- 

ney, ll'>. 
Ferdinand and Isabella, by Prescott, 

5L'5. 
Ferguson, Mrs. Elizabeth (Grasme), 91. 
Fern, Fanny, .398. 
Fessenden, Thomas Green, 99. 
Field, R. S., 215 ; Kate, 390. 
Melds, James T., 346. 
Field-Book of the Bevolution, by B. J. 

Lossinp:, 542. 
Filia, Mrs Sarah A. Dorsey, 507. 
Finney, Charles 0., 283. 
JFinlry, Samuel, f^6; John, 154; Martha, 

"Martha Farquharson," 523. 
FinoUi, Joseph M., 619. 
F^rst Lessons in Composition, by John 

S. Hart, 474. 



Fish, Henry C, 599. 

Fisher, G. P., 587. 

Fitch, Elijah, 94. 

Fitzhugh, George, 548, 

Flayg, Edward, 193. 

Flash, Henry Linden, 352. 

Fletcher', James C, 459. 

Flint, Micah P., 109; Timothy, 117. 

Florence Vane, by Philip Pendleton 

Cooke, 484. 
Foe in the Hotcsehold, by Caroline Chese- 

bro, 502. 
Folger, Peter, 40. 
Follen, Charles T., 256; Mrs. Eliza FoUen, 

2o(>. 
Fontaine, Maj. Lamar, 251. 
Footc, William Henry, 533. 
Footfalls on the Boundary of Another 

World, by Owen, 248. 
Ford, Mrs. Sal lie R., 508. 
Forney, John W., 419; opinion of Fanny 

Wright, 308 ; of Anne Royall, 308. 
Foster, Mrs. Hannah, 524 ; Randolph S., 603. 
Four Elements, by Anne Bradstreet, 40. 
Fowler, William Chauiicey, 254. 
Francis, Rev. Convers, 213 ; John AV., M. D., 

213. 
Franconia Stories, by Jacob Abbott, 492. 
Frank Forrester, a name of W. II. Her- 
bert, 192. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 58. 
Fredet, Peter. 619. 
Free Christian Cotnmonwealth, by 

Stnart Robinson, 584. 
Fremont, John C, 216. 
French, Mrs. L. Virginia, 358. 
French Cookery, 178. 
Freneau, Philip, 71. 
Frey, Joseph S. C. F., 297. 
Frisbie, Levi, 104. 

Frogs of Windham,hy Samuel Peters, 83. 
Vroissart Ballads, by Philip Pendleton 

Cooke, 483. 
Frontenac, by Street, 347. 
Frost, John, 220. 
Froth inghant, Nathaniel, 288. 
Puller, Marpuet, 227 ; Robert, 601. 
I<\irman, Richard, 370. 
Furness, William Henry, 288. 

Gage, Mrs. Francos Dana. 165. 

Gail Hamilton, name for Mary Abigail 

D(.(l-e, 400. 
Gallagher, Williani D., 154. 
Gallatin, Albert, 124. 
Gfillaiidet, Thomas H., 319. 
Gan Eden, by Ilurlbut, 411. 



628 



INDEX. 



Gath, a name of George Albert Townsend, 

421. 
Gayler, Charles, 347. 
Geograjihy, by Jedediah Morse, 131 ; by 

Woodbridge, 131. 
Georgia Scenes, by Judge Longstreot, 454. 
Gertnan Mytnns, translated, 385. 
German Mefornied Hyrniixs, 385. 
Gibbs, Josiah Willard, 254. 
GihoHf Albert L., 556. 
Gila, Gold Miners of, 192. 
Giles, Henry, 462. 
Gilnian, Mrs. Caroline, 307 ; Samuel, 307 ; 

Arthur, 393. 
Gilniore, John R., "'Edmund Kirke," 479. 
Gilpin, Henry D., 215. 
Ginger Snaps, by Fauny Fern, 398. 
Girard Will Case, argued by Webster, 235. 
Give me bach my Z,etters, by Elizabeth 

Bogart, 161. 
Glance Gaylord, Warren I. Bradley, 491. 
Glauber Spa, Tales of, by Sands, Yerplanck, 

Bryant, Leggett, and Miss Sedgwick, 108. 
Glentnary, Willis's country seat, 185. 
Gliddon, George R., 248. 
Godey's Lady's Booh, by Mrs. Hale, 309. 
Godfrey, Thomas, 86. 
Godhin, Edwin L., 413. 
Godman, John D., 123. 
Godwin, Parke, 414; opinion of Bryant, 333. 
Gold Bug, by Poe, 141. 
Golden Age, by Theodore Tilton, 432. 
Golden Censer, by John S. Hart, 547. 
Golden Fleece, The, by Sir William 

Yaughan, 27. 
Golden Legend, by Longfellow, 325. 
Good, Better, Best, by James Alexander, 

258. 
Good Eatings, by George W. Bagby, 452. 
Good English, by Edward S. Gould, 391. 
Good Ifews, by Alexander Whitaker, 26. 
GoodHch, Samuel Griswold, and Frank B., 

322; Charles A.. 221 ; Chauncey A , 254. 
Goohin, Daniel, 39. 
Gouge, William M-, 124. 
Gough, John B.. 464. 
Gould, Edward S.. 391 : Hannah F., 160. 
Gmilding, Rev. F. R.. 482. 
Grace Greenwood, Mrs. Sara J. Lippincott, 

498. 
Grace Truman, by Mrs. Sallie R. Ford. 508. 
Grammar, English, by John S. Hart, 474. 
Granada, Conquest of, 211. 
Gray, Asa, 551 ; Francis C, 312 ; Mrs. Jane 

L., 165. 
G^aydon, Alexander, 130. 
Gray Forest Eagle, by Street, 348. 



Greek Lexicon, by Pickering, 123. 

Greeley, Horace, 409 ; opinion of Raymond, 
410 ; of Gary Sisters, 360. 

Green, Joseph, 81 ; Ashbel, 132 ; Lewis W., 
274; Mrs. Frances H., 310; William 
Henry, 571. 

Greene, Asa, 115. 

Greenleaf, Benjamin, 558. 

Grimshatv, William, 220. 

Grinnel Expedition, under Kane, 251. 

Griswold, Alexander T., 137 ; Rufus W., 230 ; 
opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, 109 ; of 
Grenville Mellen, 108 ; of Maria del Oc- 
cidente, 110 ; of Mrs. Davidson, 111 ; of 
Joseph Dennie, 112; of W. D. Gallagher, 
154; of Mrs. Osgood, 158; of Mrs. Child, 
204 ; of Parsons, 343 ; of Bayard Taylor, 
457. 

Grocer's Daughter, by Boker, 337. 

Gross, Samuel D., 551. 

Guardian Angel, by 0. W. Holmes, 395; 

Guernsey, Lucy Ellen, and Clara G., 518. 

Guides, by Mark Twain, 439. 

Guild, Curtis, 430 ; Reuben A., 539. 

Chiizot, opinion of Hamilton, 68. 

Guyarre, Charles G. A., 217. 

H^achett, Horatio B., 597. 
Hadji in Syria, 608. 
ITagenian, Samuel Miller, 350. 
Ha2/ne,Vn\i] Hamilton, 370; William, 296. 
Sail Colutnbia, written by Joseph Hop- 

kinson, 100. 
Sale, Sarah Josepha, 309 ; opinion of Mrs. 

Phelps, 307 ; of Maria del Occidente, 110; 

Horatio, 561 ; Edward E., 487. 
Mall, Mrs. Sarah, 113 ; Mrs. L. J., 1 64 ; James 

190 ; William W., 556 ; John, 574. 
Sarlan,- Robert A., 613. 
Hallech, Fitz-Greene, 144 ; on J. Rodman 

Drake, 107. 
Halloch, William A., 588 ; Mrs. W. A., 589. 
Halloway, Mary, 520. 
Mamilton, Alexander, 67 ; Kate, 519. 
Hannah TJiurston, by Bayard Taylor, 

456. 
Hans Breitmann, by Charles E. Leland, 

447. 
Horhaugh, Henry, 2S6. 
Harmony of Science and Jteligion, 

by Dr. Shields, 573. 
Harney, ^o\\\\ M., 106. 
Harper's Weehly, its opinion of White- 
law Reid, 425 ; of S. S. Cox, 464. 
Harris, Thaddeus Mason, 129. 
Hai% John S., 474. 
Harte, Francis Bret, 378. 



INDEX 



629 



Haven, Joseph, 579 ; Alice B., 207; Erastus Homes, Mrs. Mary S., 353. 



0., ti05 
BLawes, Joel. 281 ; Miss Virginia, " Marion 

llarlar.il," Mrs. Terhune, 50i. 
Satck.s, Fnmcis L., ■Ji'iH. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 475; liis description 

of Fessenden, 9y. 
Hazard, Samuel, 219. 
Headley, Rev. J. T., 540. 
Hearth and Home, by Edward Eggles- 

ton, 431. 
Heat lien CJiinee, by Bret Harte. 379. 
Hebrew G-ramm,ar, Stuart's, 276. 
Heckelwelder, Rev John, 91. 
Hecker, Isaac Tliomiia, 618. 
Hedge, Frederick H., 595. 
Helen Erskitie, by Mrs. M. II. Robinson, 

505. 
Helper, Hinton Rowan, 549. 
Helps over Hard Places, by Lynde 

Palmer, 522. 
Henry, Joseph, 246 ; Caleb S., 213 ; T. Charl- 
ton. 131. 
Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, 208. 
Herald, New York, its origin, 407. 
Herbert, William Henry, 192. 
Hewitt, Mrs. Mary E. 209. 
Hewitt, A. F., 618. 
Hiawatha, by Longfellow, 325. 
Hicks, Elias, 139. 

Higrfiason, Thomas Wentworth, 402. 
Hildeburn, Mrs. Muy J., 522. 
HUdreth, Richard, 52.. 
Hill, The.)phihis II., 370 ; Thomas, 561 ; Gen. 

D. H., 406. 
Hillhouse, James A.., 105. 
Hillard, George S , 534; opinion of Everett, 

253. 
Hilliard, Henry W., 466. 
Hirst, Henry B., 15'). 
HitcJicock, Edward, 249. 
Hobart, John Henry, Bishop, 1.37. 
Hoboniok, by Mrs. Child, 201. 
Iforffire, Charles, 570; Archibald Alexander, 

571. 
Hnjfm-tn, Charles Fenno, 184; David, 318. 
Hitlbrook, .\lfred, 475. 
Holcombe, James P. and William H., 467. 
Holmes, .\bdiel, 128 ; Oliver Wendell, 395 ; 

.M:iry J., 503. 
Holland, Josiah Gilbert, ^43. 
Hfdt, John H., 482. 

Hollf/wood Cemetrf/, at Richmond, beau- 
tiful inscription on James Monroe, 66. 
Holy Land, Researches in, by Robinson, 
277. 

53* 



Home Journal, 185. 

Home Pictures, by Mrs. Gage, 165. 

Home, Sweet Home, by J. H. Payne, 151, 

Vrl. 
Hooker, Thomas, 32; Worthington, 251; 

Herman, 294. 
Hooper, Lucy, 116. 
Hope, James Barron, 370. 
Hopefully Waiting, by A. D. F. Ran- 
dolph, 372. 
Hope Leslie, by Miss Sedgwick, 171. 
Hopkins, Samuel, 90; Louisa Payson, 209 ; 

John Henry, 291 ; Mark, 579. 
Hopkinsianistn, 90. 
Hopkinson, Joseph, 100; Francis, 75. 
Horse-SIioe Hobinson, by John P. Ken- 
nedy, 174. 
Horsford, Mrs. Mary E., 209. 
Hosmer, William H. C, 155 ; Mrs. Margaret, 

521. 
House and Home Papers, by Harriet 

Beecher Stowe, 493. 
House by the Sea, by T. B. Read, 339. 
House of Seven Gables, by Hawthorne, 

475. 
Household of Bouverie, by Mrs. War- 
field, 506. 
Havey, Alvah, 597. 
Howadji, Nile Notes of, 401. 
Howelis, W. D., 401. 
Howiston, Robert H., 531. 
Hoyt, Rev. Ralph, 156. 
Hubbard, William, 39. 
Hudson, Henry Norman, 392. 
Hughes, Archbishop, 615. 
Humming-Bird, description, by Audu- 
bon, 121. 
Humphrey, Heman, 282; opinion of Alex- 
ander Campbell, 301. 
Humphreifs, David, 88; John T., 371. 
Hunt, Thomas P.. 318; Freeman, 214. 
Huntington, J. V., 486; W. R., 611; Bish- 
op, 609. 
Hurlbut, William Henry, 411. 
Hurry 'grajihs, by Willis, 185. 
Hutchinson, Thomas, Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, 84. 
Hymn Books, 383-6. 
Hymn Writers, 383-6. 
Hymnody, American, 383. 
Hyperion, by Longfellow, 324. 

Tchabod Crane, by Irvine. 211. 

Ida RatfUiond, a name fcir Mrs. Mary T. 

Tardy. 395. 
Idlewild, Willis's country seat, 185. 



630 



INDEX. 



Ik Marvel, Donald G. Mitchell, 478. 
Impending Crisis, by H. R. Helper, 549. 
I'm Sick of life, by Boker, "38. 
Independence, The Declaratiou, 63 ; Biog- 
raphy of the Signers, 178. 
Independent, New York, 432. 
Indian Bible, l)y Johu Eliot, 37. 
Indian Tribes, Schoolcraft's Researches, 

314. 
Infant, Death of, by Mrs. Sigourney, 303. 
Inferno of Dante, traaslated by Parsons, 

343. 
Ingersoll, Charles J., 215. 
Ingraham, Rev. Joseph H , 193. 
Inklings by the Way, by "Willis, 18^. 
Innojcents Abroad, by Mark Twaiu, 437. 
In School-Days, by Whittier, 332. 
In the School-Hootn, by John S. Hart, 474. 
International Law, by Wharton, 240 ; by 

W. B. Lawrence, 241. 
Intuitions of the Mind, by Dr. McCosh, 

572. 
IjistvicJi, originally called Agawara, .CO. 
Irenceus, name of S. J. Prime in the N. Y. 

Observer, 431, 
Irish Amy, by Lucy Ellen Guernsey, 518. 
Irving, Washington, 210; William, Peter, 

John T., 116; opinion of Bryant, 333. 
Isa, a Pilgrimage, by Caroline Chesebro, 

502. 
Italian Beggar-JBoy, by Mrs. E. C. Kinny, 

365. 
Ives, Bishop, 617. 
Ivory Carver, by Boker, 337. 

iTacobus, Melancthon W., 575. 

Jack Downing, Seba Smith, 449. 

Jackson, Henry R., 370. 

James, Henry, 596. 

Jane Kingsford, name for C. Barnard, 487. 

Janeway, Jacob, 271. 

Janncy, Samuel M., 216. 

Jnrvis, James Jackson, 459 ; Samuel F., 294. 

Jay, John, 69 ; William, 242. 

J/'fferson, Thomas, 63. 

Jeff'ry, opinion of Barlow's Columbiad, 78 ; 

of Franklin, 61. 
Jeffrey, Mrs. Rosa Vertner, 356. 
Jenkins, John Stilwell, 219. 
Jt'rvey, Mrs. Caroline H., 504. 
Jeter, Jeremiah B., 601. 
Jewetf, Charles C., 314. 
Joaquin Miller, 382. 
John Alden, a character in the poem of 

Miles Standisli, 326. 
John Hull and JBrothcr Jonathan, by 

Paulding, 174, 177, 210. 



I John Godfrey's Fortunes, by Bayard 
Taylor, 456. 

John Paul, name for Charles H. Webb, 
442. 

John Phoenix, George H. Derby, 449. 

Johnson, Alexander B., 125; Edward, 39; 
Samuel, 52; Sarah Barclay, 608. 

Johnson, Sir William, Life of, 214. 

Johnston, John, 553. 

Jonathan, and Squire Bull, 177. 

Jones, Joel, 273 ; Joseph H., 273 ; Charles C, 
274 ; John B., 193 ; William A., 230 ; Jo- 
seph's opinion of Ashbel Green,. 133; 
George, 613. 

Jordan, Mrs. Cornelia M., 358. 

Joseph and his Friends, by Bayard 
Taylor, 456. 

Josh Dillings, Henry W. Shaw, 446. 

Josselyn, John, 45. 

Journalist, The, by Parke Godwin, 414. 

Junkin, George, 270 ; D. X., 580 ; Margaret, 
354. 

Judd, Sylvester, 194. 

Judson, Mrs. Emily, 205. 

Kane, Elisha Kent, 251. 

Kate Aylesford, by Charles J. Peterson, 

486. 
Kate Cleveland, a name for Mrs. Nichols, 

165. 
Kathrina, by Holland, 343. 
Kavanagh, by Longfellow, 324. 
Kean's King lear, by R. H. Dana, 148. 
Keeping his Word, by Mrs. Preston, 355. 
Kegs, Battle of, by Hopkinson, 75, 76. 
Keiley, Anthony M., 370. 
Keiiner, Sam n el, 50. 
Kellogg, Elijah, 488. 
Kelly, Mrs. Caroline E. K. Davis, 521. 
Kendall, George Wilkins, 217. 
Kennedy, John P., 174. 
Kennett, by Bayard Taylor, 456. 
Kenrick, Archbishop, 614. 
Kent, James, 125 ; opinion of Hamilton, 68. 
KetcJmm, Mrs. Anna Chambers, 360. 
Key, Francis S., 100. 
Kidder, Daniel P., 603. 
Kimball, Richard B., 478. 
King, Mrs. Sue Petigru, .50i. 
Kinney, Coates, 156; Mrs. E. C, 364. 
Kip, Bishop, 608. 

Kirk, Edward N., 579 ; John Foster, 529. 
Kirkbride, Thomas S., 464. 
Kirkland, Mrs. C. M., 200. 
Kirtvan, name of Nicholas Murray, 272. 
Knajyp, Samuel Lorenzo, 129. 
Knickerbocker, founded by Hoflfman, 184. 



INDEX 



631 



bollock, TTcurj' and Slieppard, 1G2. 
Mrawthf Charles Philip, 285 ; Charles Port- 

erfield, 585. 
Krebsy Jolm M., 2T-k 
KurtZf BeBjamiii, 286. 

Z,ahor, by Mrs. Osgood, 158. 

Xrt Jinrdo, Profcsf!«r Maximilian, 467. 

Lailij Alice, or the New Una, by J. V. 

llimtiugtou, 486. 
Zindij's Book, edited by Mrs. Hale, -309. 
Lady Jii/ron Vindicated, by Harriet 

Bt'echcr Stowe, 495. 
Lajitte, the Pirate of the Gulf, 193. 
iMinb, Charles, his opinion of Maria del Oc- 

cidente, 110. 
Latnpiightev, by Maria Cum mings, 509. 
Land We Love, The, by Gen. Hill, 406. 
Lands of the Saracen, hj Bayard Taylsr, 

4^)6. 
Lange's Co>n»/if»»*«r»/^ translated and ed- 
ited l>y P. SchafF. 587. 
Language and Study of Language, 

by AV. D. Whitney, 560. 
Lanier, C. Anderson, 482^ Sidney, 4S2, 
La n in an, Charles, 547. 
Larconi, Lucy, 511. 
Latin Dictionary, by Andrews, 255; liy 

Leveret t, 123. 
Laurie Todd, by Grant Thorbnrn, 2' 5. 
Latvrence, William Beach, 241. 
Lays of Love and L'aith, by George W. 

Bethune, 2S3. 
Lea, Isaac, 550; Ileury C, 5S6. 
Learning, Jeremiah, 90. 
Lear, Edmund Kean's, by R. R. Dana, 148. 
Learned Blaclcsniith, Elihu Burritt, 556. 
LeatJier Stocking and SilJc, by J. Esten 

Cooke. 483. 
Leather Stockitig Novels by Cooper, 168. 
Tjcaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, 375. 
Lee, Henry, 88; Arthur, RS; Mary Elizabeth, 

165; Hannah F., and Eliza Buckminstor, 

210; Eleanor Percy, 507; Luroy M., 604; 

Bishop, 609. 
Ijceser, Isaac, 207. 
Legare, J. M., 156 ; Hugh L., 238. 
Legendary, The, 1S5. 
Jjeggett, William, 181. 
Leland, Charles G., 447; Henry P., 449. 
Jjconard, Agnes, .3.57. 
J^eonor de Guzman, by Boker, 336. 
TjesUe, KMza, 197. 
Lesson of Life, by Bokor, :536. 
Lester, Charles Edward, "^22. 
Leverett, Frederick P., 123. 
Le Vert, Madame, 466. 



Levy, Samuel Yates, 370. 

Letois, Elisha J., 400; Estelle Anna, 612; 
Dio, 556; Taylor, 578. 

Leyhurn, John. 583. 

Library, Philadelphia, founded, 59. 

Lieher, Francis, 243. 

Life TJioughlSf by Henry Ward Beecher, 
590. 

Lily and Totenij by W. Gilmore Simms, 
481. 

Linn, WHliam, 95-, John Blair, 100. 

TAjypard, George, 195. 

Lippincott, Mrs. Sarah J., "Grace Green- 
wood," 498. 

Literati, Tlie, by Poe, 141, 

Literature of the Age of XHisabeth, by 
E. P. Wliipple, ^^9. 

Literature, English and American, by Alli- 
bone, 394 ; by Duyckinck,3)3; by David- 
son, 394. 

Little, Mrs. Sophia L., 210, 

Little J'ack's Four Lessons, by Anna 
Warner, 495. 

Little Nell, by Mrs. Nichols, 165. 

Little Orator, spoken by Edward Everett, 
129. 

Little Women, Little Men, by Miss Al- 
cott. 499. 

Liturgy, English, its literary character, 

2:6. 

Livermore, Abiel Abbott, 289. 

TAvingston, William, Governor of New Jer- 
sey, 84. 

Living Writers of the South, by J. Wood 
Davidson, 291. 

Lofty and Lowly, by Miss Mcintosh, 173. 

Loganian Library, founded, 48. 

Logan, James, 48 ; Cornelius A., 222 ; John 
II., 530: Olive, 500. 

London Quarterly JReview, its opinion 
of Maria del Occideutc, 110; of Lncretia 
Davidson, 111. 

Longfellow, H. W., 323 ; opinion of Haw- 
thorne, 476. 

Longsfreet, Judge A. B., 454. 

Looking Glass for tJie Times, by Peter 
Folger, 40. 

Ljossing, Benson J., 542. 

Lost Angel, by Mrs. E. Oukes Smith, 502. 

Lost Cause, History of, by E. A. Pollard, 530. 

Lotus-Eating, by Curtis, 401. 

Louisville tTournal, by Geo. D. Prentice, 
417. 

Love jiFatch es,hy Washington AIlston,101. 

Lowell, J. Russell, 387 ; opinion of Uowolls, 
401 ; Robert, 013. 

Lowrle, Walter M., 271. 



632 



INDEX. 



JJudUyw^ Fitzhngh, 489. 

Jjimt, George, 155. 

JLyman, Theodore, 244. 

jAj^\ch, Mrs. Anne C. Lynch Botta, S67 ; 

William F^ 251. 
J^ynde Palmer, name for Mrs. Peebles, 

JLyrn Sacra A:mericana, by Cleveland, 

231. 
McAmtlli/f David R. 605. 
Jf^cCahef James B., 530. 
McClellan, Isaac, 156. 
McClinfoeJc, John, 601. 
3Ic Cliirg, James, 93. 
DfcConnucfhy , Mrs. J. E., 512. 
McConnel, John L., 489. 
McCfird, Mrs. Louisa S., 239. 
McCnsh, James, 572. 
McDonald, James M., 574. 
McFlngal, Hndibrastic poem by TrnmbBlI, 

77. 
McGtiffey, Prof. Wm. H., 568. 
Mcdill, John, 619. 
McGuire, Mrs. John P., 531. 
JMEcIIenry, James, 194. 
Mcllvaine, Joshua 11., 562 ; Bishop, COS. 
Mcintosh, Maria J., 174. 
McKeevcr, Harriet B., 520. 
MacKellar, Tliomjis A., 869. 
MacTsenzie, Holmes, 396 ; Alexander Slidell, 

216; R. Shelton, 419; opinion of Griswold, 

230. 
MacTcey, Albert Gallatin, 466. 
JITacZean., John, 571. 
Mclicod, Alexander, 134 ; Mrs. Georgiana A., 

408 ; Xavier Donald, G17. 
McMaeJcin, John, 221. 
3Ic3Iichael, Morton, 419. 
McSherry, James, 532; Ei chard, 532. 
McTyeire, II. N., 605. 
Madison, James, 65. 
3Iad Poet, The, McDonald Clarke, 154. 
May ill, Miss Mary Tncker, 505. 
Maynaliii, Cotton Mather's, 43. 
Mayoon, E. L., 296. 
Mahan, Asa, 594. 
Major Jones's CouvtsTiip, by Wm. T. 

Thompson, 454. 
MaJciny fJie J^residant a Doctor of 

I.aa's, hy Jack Downing, 450. 
Malhone, by T. W. nij,-gin3on, 402. 
Malcorn, Ho\Yard, 296. 
Mann, Horace, 312. 

Man withont a. Cmtntry, by Edward Ev- 
erett Hale, 488. 
Marble Farm, by Hawthorne, 475. 
March, Francis Andrew, 561. 



Marco Dossaris, by Halleck, 144, 145. 

Ma-re 3Iount, the jolly doings there by 
Morton and his fellows, 34. 

Maria del Occidertte, a name given by 
Sonthey to .Mrs. Brooks, 110. 

Marion Mavland, Mrs. Mary Y. Terhure, 
503. 

Mark Twain, name for Samuel L. Clemens, 
437. 

Marks, Elias, 370. 

Mai'sh, George P., 254. 

Marshall, John, 128 ; Nellie, 508. 

Martha Farquharson, name for Miss 
Finley. 

Martin Merivale, His X Mark, by Trow- 
bridge, 403. 

Ma^-tyn^ Mrs. Sarah T., 516; Rev. W. Carlos 
M., 516. 

Mai^ Clavers, Mrs., a name for Mrs. Kirk- 
land, 200. 

Mason, Dr. John M., 133. 

Mather, Cotton, 43; his remarks on Hooker, 
32; remarks upon John Eliot, 38; Rich- 
ard, 29, 38 ; Increase, 42 ; Samuel, 51. 

Matlieu's, Julia A., and Joanna II., 523; 
Cornelius, 194. 

Maturin, Edward, 194. 

Matid Midler, by Whittier, 330. 

Maury, Miitlhew F., 552. 

Maverick, Augustus, Life of Raymond, 410. 

Mayer, Lewis, 286; Philip F., 286; Brantz, 
217. 

Maylietv, Jonathan, 89 ; Ira, 544. 

Mayo, William S., 191 ; Mrs. Sarah C, 209. 

May-pole doings at Ma-re Mount, 34. 

3leade, William, 292. 

Meat for Strong M€n,hy John Cotton, 31. 

Mechanic and Woi'kinyinan, American, 
by James Alexander, 258. 

Medical Dictionary, Dunglison's, 247. 

Melanie, by Willis, 185. 

Mell, P. H., 601. 

Mellen, Grenville, 108. 

Melville, Hermann, 486. 

Metnorable Pi'ovidences, by Cotton Ma- 
ther, 45. 

3Ierearius JLnti-Mechanictts, by Na- 
thaniel Ward, 31. 

MethodiM Hymns and Hymn-Books, 3S6. 

3Iethod of the Divine Government, by 
James McCosli, 572. 

MctJiods of Study in Nalural History, by 
Agiissiz, 550. 

Meta/tnora, a tragedy written for Edwin 
Forrest, by J. A. Stone, 109. 

Mexico, conquest of, by Prescott, 525. 

Middletonf Henry, 548. 



INDEX. 



633 



MUes, Standish, by Longfellow, 325. 

Miles, George H., 371; Pliny, 193. 

Milk for Babes, by John Cotton, 31. 

Miller, Samuel, 264; E. Spencer, 350; Cin- 
cinnatus Ileine, "Joaquin Miller,"' 38J. 

Milligan, Robert, b07. 

Miner, Charles, 130. 

Ministei^s Wooing, by Harriet Bcechcr 
■ Stowe, 493. 

Minot, George R., 95. 

Mint-fTnlrp, fiibled origin of, 3.j7. 

Miiithe, origin of, 357. 

Mirror, N. Y., 185. 

MistaJi.es of Educated Men, by John S 
Hart, 474. 

Mitchel, Ormsby MacKnight, 247. 

Mite fiell, John, 135; J. K., 320; Annie M., 
524; Donald G., "Ik. Marvel," 478. 

Mitchill, Samuel Latham, 115. 

MitfordfMiss, opinion of Stoddard's poetrj-, 
349. 

Moching-Jiird, description by TTllson, 119. 

Modern Chivalry, by Brackenridge, 74. 

3Ioffat, James C, 571. 

Mogg Mcgane, by Wliittier, 330. 

Moina, a name of Mrs. Dinnies, 356. 

Moll ditcher, by Whittier, 330. 

Monotonous, Growing, by Mark Twain, 438. 

Monosyllahics, by Addison Alexander, 263. 

Monroe, James, 66. 

Moore, Clement C, 101 ; Mollie E.,358 ; Frank, 
541 ; Thomas V., 582; William T., GO '. 

Moral in Shakspeare, The, by Lowell, 
388. 

Moravian Hymns, 385. 

Moravian Nuns, Hymn of, by Longfel- 
low, 324. 

Morell, Rev. William, author of Nova Au- 
glia, 28. 

Morford, Henry, 480. 

Morris, E. Joy, 545 ; George P., 587. 

Morse, Jedcdiah, 131. 

Morton, Thomas, 34; Nathaniel, 35; Samuel 
G., 248. 

Mosses from an Old Manse, by Haw- 
thorne, 475. 

Motlier at Motne, by John S. C. Abbott, 
493. 

Motley, John Lothrop, 528. 

Moulton, Mrs. Louisa Chandler, 498. 

Mountain and Squirrel, by Emerson. 
224. 

Mountford, William. 289. 

Mozis Addums, George W. Bagby, 451. 

Mudffe, Z. A., 492. 

Munford, William, 100. 

Murder in ttie Jiue Morgue, by Poo, 141. 



Murdock, James, 280. 

Murphy, Mrs. Rosalie Miller, 504. 

Murray, Nicholas, 272. 

Myers, Mrs. Sarah A., 522. 

My Life is Like the Summer Rose, by R.II. 

Wilde, 191. 
My Pen, by Mrs. Osgond, 158. 
My Study Windows, by J. Russell Lowell, 

3b7. 

Nack, James, 156. 

yast, William, 002. 

Nation, The, by E. L. Godkin, 413. 

National Gazette, The, by Robert Walsh, 
112. 

Natural History, Methods of Study, by 
Agassiz, 550. 

Neal, Joseph C, 180 ; John, 183 ; Mrs. Alice 
B., 207. 

Near the Lake, by Morris, 189. 

Nearer Home, by Phoebe Cary, 361. 

Neighbor Jackwood, by Trowbridge, 403. 

Nellie Grahanie, name for Mrs. Dunning, 
519. 

Ncttleton, Asahel, 282. 

Nevin, John W., 287. 

Neit'conibe, Rev. Harvey, 280. 

Newell, Prof. M. A., 5G9. 

New England's Manorial, by Nathan- 
iel Morton, 35. 

New England's Prospect, by William 
Wood, 28. 

New England Tragedies, by Longfel- 
low, 325. 

New Hampshire, History of, by Belknap*, 
91. 

New Harmony, Robert Owen's Settle- 
ment, 247. 

New Home, by Mrs. Kirkland, 201. 

New Pastoral, by Read, 339. 

Netaport Rotnance, by Bret Harte, 380. 

New Testament, Lexicon, by Robinson, 
278. 

New Them.es for Protestant Clergy, 
by Stephen Col well, 582. 

Neivton, Richard, Gil. 

Neuf York Observer, by S. I. Pnme, 43L 

Nichols, Mrs. Rebecca S., 165. 

.V;rA7jn, Philip II.. 11.3. 

yUe Notes of a Howadji, by Curtis, 401. 

Noah, Mordeoai M., 316. 

Nora, by J. T. ITtimiilireys, 372, 

yordhoff, Charles, 418. 

Xormal Schools, by Henry Barnard, 468. 

Nortfi American NeirsjKijter, by Mor- 
ten McMichael, 419. 

Nortltvtul, Charios, 168. 



634 



INDEX. 



Norton, Sidney A., 555 ; John, 33 ; Andrews, 
288. 

Notes on Virffinia, by Jefferson, 64. 

Nothing to Wear, by William Allen But- 
ler, 346. 

Nott, Eliphalct, President of Union College, 
134; Josiah C, 249. 

No Pent up TTtica, see Sewell, 94. 

Nourse, James D., 321. 

Nova A.nglia, by Rev. William Morell, 28. 

Noyes, George 11., 288 ; James 0., 542. 

October, a poem, by Hosmer, 155. 

Odenheimer, Bishop, 609. 

Ogden, John, 470. 

Old- Fashioned Girl, by Louisa M. Alcott, 
499. 

Old Helmet, by Susan Warner, 495. 

Old Hichs, by Webber, 192. 

Old Lawyers, by John P. Kennedy, 174. 

Old OaJcen Huchet, by Woodworth, 105. 

Old Portraits and Modern SketcJies, 
by Whittier, 330. 

Oldport Jtomance, by T. W. Higginson, 
402. 

Old Stone Mansion, by Charles J. Peter- 
sou, 486. 

Old Totvn Folks, by Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, 493. 

Olive, Stephen, 298. 

Oliver Optic, William T. Adams, 490. 

Oliver, Peter, 217. 

Olmsted, Denison, 245; James M., 273; 
Frederick Law, 243. 

Onderdonli., Henry M., 291. 

Order for a Picture, by Alice Gary, 363. 

Orne, Miss C. P., 51<^ ; Mrs. Caroline, 518. 

Ornithology, by Wilson, 117-120 ; by Au- 
dubon, 120-122. 

Orton, Jason R., 191. 

Osborne, Henry J., 555. 

Osborn, Laughton, 191. 

Osgood, Mrs. Frances S., 158 ; Samuel, 612. 

Ossoli, d', Margaret Fuller, 227. 

Otis, James, 62; Harrison Gray, 127. 

Our Baby, by A. D. F. Randolph. 373. 

Out-Door Papvrs, by Col. Higginson, 402. 

Outre-Mer, by Longfellow, 324. 

Outside the Gate, by Josephine Pollard, 
368. 

Owen, Robert, 247 ; Robert Dale, 248 : David 
Dale, 248 ; Richard, 248 ; John J., 256. 

Packard, Frederick A., 320. 

Page, David P., 314. 

Paine, Ro1)ert Treat, .Jr., 07. 

Palfrey, John G., 213; Miss Sarah II., 213. 



Palmer, John W., 406 ; Mrs. Henrietta L., 

406 ; Ray, 350. 
Panther, The, by Cooper, 169. 
Pardee, B. G., 465. 

Parisian Domestic Economy, 179. 
Parker, Richard Green, 257 (see Watson, J. 

M.); Joel, 243, 269; Theodore, 290 ; Mrs. 

Jenny M., 5^:3. 
Park, Edwards A., 593; opinion of Dr. Em- 
mons, 136. 
Parktnan, Francis, 535. 
Parrish, Edward, 465. 

Parsons, Tliouias W., 343 ; Theophilus, 596. 
Partington, Mrs., B. P. Shillaber, 4i4. 
Partisan, by W. Gilmore Simms, 481. 
Par'ton, Mrs. Parton, " Fanny Fern,"' 398 ; 

James, 397; opinion of Greeley, 409; of 

Clay, 238. 
Parvin, Robert J., 493. 
Passonagessit, the Indian name of Ma-re 

Mount, 34. 
Passaic, poems, by T. Ward, 157. 
Passing Away, by Picrpont, 149. 
Passing Under tlie Pod, by Mrs. (Dana) 

Shindler, 166. 
Passmore, Joseph C, 321. 
Past 3Ieridian, by Mrs. Sigourney, 303. 
Patrick Henry, Life of, by Wm, Wirt, 113. 
Paulding, .Tames K., 174. 
Payne, John Howard, lol. 
Payson, Edward, 137. 

Peabody, Oliver William Bourne and Wil- 
liam Bourne Oliver, 312; Elizabeth, 557 ; 

Andrew P., 595 ; opinion of Parsons, 343 ; 

of Furness, 289. 
Peale, Charles Wilson, 12 ;; R»rabrant, 320. 
PecJ^, William Henry, 481 ; George, 602. 
Peebles, Mrs. M. L., " Lynde Palmer," 522. 
Peet, Harvey P., "19. 

Pencillings by the Way, by Willis, 185. 
rendleton, James M.. 600. 
Pennsylvania Common School tfotir' 

nal, edited by John S. Hart, 474. 
Pennsylvania, University of, founded. 59. 
I'en-PJiotograpJis of Dickens's Bead" 

ings, by Kate Field, 390. 
People 1 have Met, by Willis, 185. 
PercivalfJ.Q., 151. 
Perigrine Prolix, a name for Philip 

Nicklin, 113. 
Perkins, James H., 315. 
Feru, Conquest of, by Prescott, 525. 
Feter Parley, S. S. Goodrich, 322. 
Peter Ploddy, by Josoi^li C. Neal, ISO. 
Feter Schleniil in America, by George 

Wood, 116. 
Peters f Sumuel, 82. 



INDEX 



635 



I'eterson, Charles J., 485 ; Henry, 486. 
JPlH'lps!, Austin, 593; Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart, 
593; Miss Elizaheth, 594; Sylvamis D., 
349; Mrs. A. II. Lincoln, 306. 
I'hilnnder Doe.stichs, Mortimer H. 

Tliompson, 419. 
Fhilosophical Societi/, American, fonnd- 

cd, 59. 
Philip IT., by Prescott, 525. 
Philips, Samuel, 586. 
Phillips Acadeuitf, Andover, -255. 
rhiUips, Wendell, 546. 
Plifeiiijc,, John, George H. Derby, 449. 
Phonetics, by Comstock, 257. 
Physical Geography of the Sea, by 

Com. Maury, 552. 
PickcHtiff, John, 123. 

Picket Guard, " All quiet along the Poto- 
mac," 351. 
Picture of St. John, by Bayard Taylor, 456. 
Pierpont, John, 149. 
Pierson, Mrs. Lydia Jane, 210. 
Pike, Albert, 193 ; John G., 296; Mrs. Mary 

II., 523. 
Pilot, by Cooper, 168. 
Pindar, Susan, 209. 
Pioneer, by Cooper, 168. 
Pise, 0. Constantine, 619. 
Pitkins, Timothy, 130. 
Planting of the Apple-Tree, by Bryant, 

334. 
Platonic Ttieology, by Tayler Lewis, 579. 
Plainer, "William S., 581. 
Plymouth Collection of Hymns, by II. W. 

Boecher, 590. 
Plymouth Jtock, Oration by Webster, 235. 
Podesta's Daughter, by Boker, 337. 
Poe, Edgar A., 140 ; opinion of Amelia Welby, 

165 ; of Bayard Taylor, 457. 
Poets and Poets of America, by Gris- 

wold. 230. 
Poets atul Poetry of Europe, by Long- 
fellow, 324. 
Poet- Laureate, TiOngfellow, 323. 
Poet-Painter, T. B. Read, 339. 
Political Catechism, by Hopkinson, 76. 
Political Economy , by H. C. Carey, .')44. 
Pollard, Edwanl A., o'.Q ; Josephine, 368. 
Pond, Enoch, 592. 
Poor Richard^s Alma nac, hy Fra.nk\'\n, 

58. 
Poore, Ben. Perlcy. 541. 
Parte Crayon, Gi-n. D. II. Strother, 457. 
l*orter, Ebene/.er, 13(). 
Portfolio, The, by Dcnnie, 112. 
Post, N. Y. Evening, 414. 
Potiphur Papersy by G. W. Curtis, 401. 



Totter, Elisha R., 218 ; Alonzo, 291. 

Potts, 'M.rs. Washington, by Miss Le.-slie, 197. 

Powell, Thomas, 347. 

Pray, Isaac, 429. 

Prayer in Public Councils, proposed by 

Franklin, 59. 
Precaution, by Cooper, 168. 
Pre-Historic Nations, by I. D. Baldwin, 

536. 
Prentice, George D., 417; opinion of Alex- 
ander Campbell, 302. 
Presbyterian Psalms and Hymns, 386. 
Presbyterial Critic, by Stuart Robinson, 

584. 
Prescott, William H., 525; opinion of R. M. 

Bird, 485. 
Press, The, by Forney, 419. 
Preston, Mrs. Margaret J., 353 ; Thomas S., 

618. 
Pretty Time of Night, by Joseph C. Neal, 180. 
Prime, Benjamin Yoking, 83; Samuel Iren- 
aeus, 431; E. D. Griffin, 432; W. Cowper, 
432 ; Nathaniel S., 275. 
Prince, Thomas, 51. 
Prince of the House of David, by Ingra- 

ham, 193. 
Princeton Revieiv, contributions by Ad- 
dison Alexander, 259 ; by Dr. Ilodge, 570. 
Printing, history of, by Israel Thomas, 131. 
Printing Press, The first in America, 29. 
Professor at the Breakfast Table^ by 

0. W. Holmes, 395. 
Prose Writers of AmericUf by Griswold, 

230. 
Protidfit, Alexander M., 134. 
Proud Miss McBHde, by Saxe, 340, 
Psalm of Liife, by Longfellow, 324 ; paro- 
dy, by Phebe Cary, 362. 
Psalm and Hymn-Books, 385; Psalm 
and Hymn Writers, 383; by Dwight, 79. 
Psalterium Americanum, by Cotton Ma- 
ther, 383. 
Pugh, Mrs. Eliza Lofton, 507. 
Pulpit, American, by Sprague, 271. 
Pumpelly, Raphael, 552. 
Punctuation, by John Wilson, 320. 
Putnam, Mrs. Mary L., 390. 

Quackenbos, George P., 569. 
Quadrupeds of North America, by 

Audubon, 121. 
Quakei^m not Christianity, by S. IL 

Cox, 268. 
Qnincy, Josiah, 88, 311 ; Edward, 311. 
Queer Little People, by Harriot Beecher 

Stowe, 493. 
Queechy, by Susan Warner, 495. 



636 



INDEX. 



Magnet, Condy, 124. 

Main on the Moof, by Coates Kinney, 156. 

Jtanisay, David, 87; his daughters, 166; 

Mrs. Vienna. 515. 
Mandall, Samuel S., 472 ; James R., 372. 
Maixgers, Texan, 192. 
Mandolph, Anson D. F., 372. 
Mnndolph of Jtoanoke, description of, by 

Paulding, 175. 
JRaphall, Morris Jacob, 299. 
Jtationale of Verse, by Poe, 144. 
Mats, by Josh Billings, 447, 
Maven, The, by Poe, 141. 
Matvle, "VYilliam, 127. 
May, Joseph, 559. 
Maymond, Henry J., 409. 
Mead, Thomas Buchanan, 339 ; Hollis, 274. 
Mecollections of a Busy lAfe, by 

Horace Greeley, 409. 
Medburn, by Herman Melville, 486. 
Med JacUet, Life of, 214. 
Med Mover, by Cooper, 168. 
Medwood, by Mrs. Sedgwick, 171. 
Meed, Joseph, 87 ; Henry, 228 ; William B., 

229. 
Mees's Cyclopedia, American edition, 118. 
Meese, David Meredith, 314. 
Meformed DutcJi Mytnns, 385. 
Meid, Whitelaw, 423. 
Menioving Mountains, by John S. Hart, 

474. 
MentvicTe, James, 250. 
Mepertory, Biblical, by Dr. Hodge, 570. 
Mejiresentative Men, by Emerson, 223. 
Mequier, Augustus Julian, 372. 
Mesignation, by Longfellow, 327. 
Metribution, by Mrs. Southworth, 496. 
Meveries of a MacJielor, by Ik Marvel, 

478. 
Mevival Sermons, by Daniel Baker, 581. 
Meynolds, William M., 613. 
Mhynie of the Mail, by Saxe, 341. 
Mice, John H., 133; N. L., 577. 
Michardson, Albert D., 420; Robert, 608; 

Nathaniel S., 613. 
Mipley, Henry J., 597 ; George, 417 ; opinion 

of Caroline Chesebro, 502. 
Mip Van Winkle, by Irving, 211. 
Mitchie, Anna Cora Mowatt, 497. 
Mivers, W. C, 531. 

Mives, William C, 216; Mrs. Rives, 216. 
Mhrington, James, 70; his Last Will and 

Testament, 71. 
M«>b of the Bowl, by John P. Kennedy, 174. 
Jiobcrtson, Margaret M., 523. 
Mobbins, Kcv. Royall, 218; Eliza, 218; 

Chandler, 290. 



Mobinson, Edward, 277; Mrs. Edward, 278; 

Stuart, 584; Solon, 318; Jobn H., 489; 

Horatio N., 558; Mrs. Martha Harrison, 

505. 
MocUwell, J. E., 576. 
Moe, Azel Stevens, 195. 
Molfe, William J., 553. 
Mollo MooTis, by Jacob Abbott, 492. 
Momance of Mexico, hy Robt. M. Bird,485. 
Moosevelt, Robert B., 460. 
Mose Clark, by Fanny Fern, 398. 
Mose, Aquila, 50. 
Mosser, Leonidas, 606. 
Motvland, Henry A., 286. 
Mowson, Susan, 92. 
Moyal Gazette, by Rivington, 70. 
Moyall, Anne, 308. 

Mtiffner, Henry, 582 ; William Henry, 582. 
Mupp, J. Daniel, 218. 
Muschenberger, William S. W., 250. 
J?i««7i., Benjamin, 85; James, 256. 
Mussell, William, 256. 
Mutlt Sail, by Fanny Fern, 398. 
Muth Partington, name for P. R. Shilla- 

ber, 444. 

Sabine, Lorenzo, 217. 

Sabbath ScJiools, Thoughts on, by John 

S. Hart, 474. 
Sabbath-Day Chase, by Truman, 71. 
Sadlier, Mrs. James, 517. 
Salander and the Dragon, by Frederick 

W. Shelton, 350. 
Sample, Robert F., 576. 
Samson, George W., 598. 
Sanderson, John, 178, 180. 
Sands, Robert C, 108. 

Sandys, George, his translation of Ovid, 26. 
Sangster, Mrs. Margaret E., 369. 
Sanscrit, Prof. Whitney, 560. 
Sargent, Winthrop, 535 ; Lucius, 196; Epes, 

461. 
Sartain's Magazine, its origin, 201; 

edited by J. S. Hart, 474. 
Saunders, Poor Richard, 58 ; Frederic, 314, 
Savage, James, LL.D., 218 ; John, 540. 
Sawyer, Leicester Ambrose, 276. 
/Saxe, John G.,340; opinion ofHigginson,403, 
Say and Seal, by Susan and Anna Warner, 

495. 
Scarlet Letter, by Hawthorne, 475. 
ScJiaeffer, Charles F., and Charles W., 586. 
Schaff, Philip, 586. 
SchencU, William E., 574. 
Schloniil, Peter, in America, 116. 
SchmucTcer, John G., 286 ; Samuel S., 286 ; 

S. M.. 196. 



INDEX 



637 



Schoolcraft, Henry R., 314. 

School and ScJioolniastei', by Totter and 

Eiuorson, 291. 
School Ecotiotny, by J. P. Wickorshunx, 

41)1. 
School Architecture, by II. Barnard, 468. 
Schroedcr, John Frederick, 318. 
Schuyler, A., 558. 
Schweinitz, Edmund A., 5S5. 
Science of JEducation and Art of 

Teaching, l)y John Ogden, 470. 
Science of Gtrvernment, by Joseph Alden, 

473. 
Sci.s.sors-ijrrinder, Tim, by Mrs. Madeline 

Leslie, 514. 
(ScoW, M'illiam Anderson, 584; Mrs. Julia II., 

209. 
Scottifth twiddle. Lay of, by Paulding, 175. 
Scoville, Juseph A., 19i, 
Scudder, Joliu, 286; Horace E., 489. 
Seabuvy, Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut, 

89; Samuel, 295. 
Sears, Robert, 3Jl ; Barnas, 556. 
Sea-Weed, by R. W. Wright, 374. 
Sercoinb, John, 52. 
Second Adventists, 273. 
Sedgtvick,Cixi\\(.'Y\uQ M., 198; Theodore, and 

Mrs. Theodore, 173. 
Seeniuller, Mrs. Anne Moncure, 508. 
Seisfi, Joseph II., 5S6. 
Senii'lunar Fardels, the D D so called 

by T>r. Cox. 268. 
Setnmes, Raphael, 460. 
Seneca Tjake, Ode to, by Percival, 151. 
Seivnll, Jonathan Mitchell, 94. 
Seufell, Thomas, 250. 
Seymour, Mrs. Mary TI., 516. 
Shakspeare; editions and criticisms of, by 

Richard Grant Wliite, ."91; by Hudson, 

392; by Delia Bacon. 390; biography. 226 ; 

Criticism, 229; Lectures, by Dana, 148; 

Ode, l)y Sprague, 152; by Ellsworth, 374. 
STiair, Henry W., "Josh Billings," 446. 
Shedrl, William G. T., .576. 
Shehlo t,¥A\\'i\.n\ A.. 556. 
Shelton, Frederick W., :}50. 
Shei^ard, T\\omi\&, life and works, 35; ban- 
ters the writers of the Bay Psalm-book, 29. 
Sheppard, Furman. 54 1. 
Sheindan's Jiide, by Read, .339. 
Sherman, Rev. John. 138. 
Shea, John Qilniary, 531; John Augustus, 

5-32. 
Shields, Charles W., ,"173. 
ShiUahcr, Benjamin P., ".Mrs. Partington," 

444. 
Shindler, Mrs. Mary S. B., 166. 
64 



Shlpp, Barnard, 372. 

Short Courses in Science, by J. Dorman 

Steele, 554. 
Shoulder-straps, by Henry Morford, 480. 
Shreve, Thomik* 11., 196. 
Slhyl Huntlnf/ton, \>y Mrs. Dorr, 509. 
Siyners of the JJeclaration, by John 

Siinderson, 178. 
Sigourney, Lydia H., 302. 
Silence, by S. M. IIageman,350. 
Sillinian, Benjamin, 245. 
Sinuns, W. Gilmore, 481. 
Sinionton, James W., 425. 
Sinclair, Carrie Bell,. 360. 
Singing Sibyl, name given by Willis to 

Mrs. Victor, 511. 
Sinless Child, by Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, 502, 
Six lights with the Washingtonians, 

by T. S. Arthur, 488. 
Sketch Hook, by Irving, 211. 
Skinner, Thomas II., 269. 
Ski.j>'s Last Advice, by Dinsmoor, 103. 
Slain in Hattle, by Mrs. Preston, 354. 
Slender, Robert, essays by Freneau, 71. 
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 131 ; William, 89 

Roswell C, 131 ; Richard Penn, 190; Eli 

278; E. Delafield, 370; Mrs. E. Oakes, .501 

Seba, 450; Mrs. Emeline S., 367 ; Mrs, 

Frances J. B., 524; T. Buckingham. 538 

Henry B., 576; Asa D., 577; Matthew 

Hale, 587. 
Smithsonian Institution, 246. 
Smyth, Thomas, 583. 
Snelling, William J., 194. 
Snow Bound, by Whittier, 330. 
Snow Flake, by Harriet F. Gould, 190. 
Social Sciqnce, by Henry C. Gary, 544. 
Song of the Earth, by Boker, 337. 
Songs of the Sierras, by Joaquin Miller, 

382. 
Sojrrano, by C. Barnard, 487. 
South, Living Writers of, 394. 
Southern Harp, by Mrs. (Dana) Shindler, 

166. 
Southern TAterary Messenger, by J. R, 

Thompson, 416. 
Southgate, Horatio, 610. 
Southland Writers, by Mrs. Mary T. 

Tardy, 395. 
Southey, his opinion of Mrs. Burke (" Marie 

del Oroidente"), 110; of Lucretia David- 

non. 111. 
Smtthworth, Mrs. Emma D. E., 496. 
' Spnldhtg, Archbisliop, 615. 
Spanish Literature, History of, by Tick- 
I nor. -)J7. 

I Spanish Student, by Longfellow, 324. 



638 



INDEX 



SparTcs, Jared, 212. 

Spur row f/r ass Papers , by F. S. Cozzens, 

190. 
Spartactis to tlie Gladiators, by E. Kel- 
logg, 48S. 
SpellingSoolt,, by Webster, 122. 
Spencer, Ichabod S., 274; Jesse A., 611. 
Spenser and the Fairy Queen, by John 

S. Hart, 474. 
Sphinx, The, by Emerson, 224. 
Spofford, Mrs. Harriet E. Prescott, 498. 
Spooner, Shearjashub, 221 ; Lysander, 244. 
Sprague, Charles, 152; William B., 271. 
Springfield Mepublicun, by Samuel 

Bowles, 417. 
Spring, by Willis, 186. 
Spring, Gardiner, 272. 
Spy, The, by Cooper, 168. 
Squier, Ephraim G., 553. 
Squire Hull and Son J'onathan, 177. 
Star Papers, by Henry Ward Beecher, 

590. 
Star-Spangled Banner, written by Fran- 
cis S. Key, 100. 
Stauffer, Frank II., 490. 
Stedman, Edmund C, 366. 
Steele, J. Dorman, 554. 
St. Elmo, by Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, 

505. 
Stephens, Alexander H., 548 ; Mrs. Ann S., 

495 ; John L., 315. 
Sterling, Richard, 569. 
SternJiold and Hopkins, their Psalm- 

Book in New England, 29. 
Stevens, Henry, 540 ; Bishop, 609. 
Steivart, Charles S., 319. 
Stiles, Ezra, President of Yale, 78. 
Still Hour, by Austin Phelps, 593. 
St. Ledger, by Richard R. Kimball, 478. 
Stockton, Rev. Thomas H., 157. 
Stoddard, Richard H., 349; Mrs. Stoddard, 

349 ; Solomon, 51. 
Stoever, Martin L., 585. 
Stone, Samuel, 32; Augustus, 109 ; William 

L., 214; W. L., Jr., 214; Thomas T., 281 ; 

John S., 610; James Kent, 618. 
Stork, Theophilus, 286. 
Sforrs, Richard S., 591. 
Storg, .Toseph, 126 ; his opinion of Kent, 126 ; 

of Legare, 239 ; William W., 465. 
Stoiv, Bar(m, 296. 

St.nire. Calvin E., 590 : Harriet Beecher, 493. 
St. Nicholas, a visit from, by C. C. Moore, 

102. 
Stracheif, William, 26. 
Stranger in TjOWcU, by Whitticr, 330. 
Strawberry Garden, by C. Barnard, 487. 



Street, Alfred B., 347. 

Street Scene, by Mrs. Child, 204* 

Strickland, William P., 603. 

Strike, a poem, by Ralph Iloyt, 156. 

Strong, Nathan, 90 ; James, 601. 

StrotJier, Gen. D. H., " Porte Crayon," 457. 

Stryker, James, 315. 

Stuart, Moses, 276 ; Isaac W., 277. 

Suburban Sketches, hj W. D. Howells,401. 

Sullivan,W iUiam., opinion of Hamilton, 68; 

James, 88, 127 ; Thomas R., 290. 
Sulphur Springs, Virginia, 179. 
Summerfield, John, 139. 
Summer Rose, My Life is Like, 191. 
Summers, Thomas, 605. 
Sumner, Charles, 645 ; George, 546 ; Charles 

P., 100. 
Sun, New York, by Charles A. Dana, 417. 
Sunderland, Le Roy, 298. 
Sunday Morning Bird, by Bishop Doane, 

292. 
Sunday-School Idea, by John S. Hart, 

474. 
Sunday-School Times, edited by John S. 

Hart, 474. 
Sunnyside, residence of Washington Ir- 
ving, 211. 
Superstition and Force, by Henry C. 

Lea, 533. 
Swallow Barn, by John B. Kennedy, 174. 
Stveetser, Charles H., 418. 
Swett, Col. Samuel, 218 ; Joseph, 613. 
Swinton, William, 472. 
Swisshelm, Mrs. Jane G., 432. 
Sybaris and other Homes, by Edmund 

Everett Hale, 488. 
Syrnmes, Capt John C, 117. 
Sypher, Josiah R., 543. 
Systematic Theology, by Charles Hodge, 

570. 

Talisman, an annual, by Sands, Verplanck, 
and others, 108. 

Talley, Susan Archer, 360. 

Talmage, T. De Witt, 578. 

Talvi, a name for Mrs. Edward Robinson, 278. 

Tam, a name for T. A. MacKellar, 3G9. 

Tappan, Henry Philip, 276 ; Wm. B., 2F0. 

Tarbox, Increase N., 280. 

Taylor, Bayard, 456; Nathaniel W., 280; 
Samuel H, 255; John, 127; F. W., 318; 
Alfred, 578. 

TearJier's Assistant, by Charles North- 
end, 469. 

Tefft, Benjamin, 193. 

Ten Nights in a Bar Room, by T. S. 
Arthur, 488. 



INDEX 



639 



Tenney, Sanborn, 554 ; William J,, 533 ; Mrs. 
Tabitha, 116. 

Ten Rod Farm, by C. I5ainard, 487. 

Ten Times One, by Edward Everett Uale, 
4S8. 

Tent on the Bench, by Whittier, 330. 

Tenth Muse, Anne Bradstreet so called, 40. 

Tevhune, Mrs. Mary Virginia, " Marion Ilar- 
land," o03. 

Terrible Tractoration, by Christopher 
Caustic, 99. 

Tecrnn Itnnffers, 192. 

Tltnnntopsis, by Rryant, 333. 

Tlmcher, Samuel C, 13S ; James, 250. 

Thatcher, Benjamin B., 218 ; Adam W., 193. 

Thatjer, Thomas B., 290 ; William M., 491. 

Theatrics, Georgia, by Judge Longstreet, 
4o5. 

Theodora, by Edith May, 162. 

Thomas, Frederick W., 195; Lewis F., 
Martha M., and E. S., 196; Isaiah, 131; 
Joseph, 5"9. 

Thompson, Joseph P., 5S7 ; Augustus C, 
587; Zadock, 218; John R., 416; Charles 
W., 194; James B., 252; Benjamin, 45: 
William T., 4r.4 ; Mortimer H., 449 ; Daniel 
P., 197 : Julia C, 524. 

Thomson, Charles, 84; William M., 275. 

TJioreaa, Henry 1) , 477. 

Thorbnrn, Grant, 215. 

Tliornton, John W., 220. 

Thormvald, James H., 269. 

TJiorpe, Tliomas B., 315. 

TJiree Days, by J. R. Gil more, 480. 

Tliree Wise Men of Gotham, by Pauld- 
ing, 174. 

Tich-nor, George, 527. 

Til ton, Tlieodore, 432. 

Times, New York, its origin, 409. 

Timothy Titcomb, name of Dr. Holland, 
34?. 

Tim the Scissors - Grinder, by Mrs. 
Madeline Leslie, 514. 

Todd, John, 594. 

Tomb of Adam, by Mark Twain, 441. 

Tomes, Robert, 542. 

Totn Thornton, a novel, by R. H. Dana, 147. 

True Masters, by C. Barnard, 487. 

Tou'lf, George M., .''i29. 

Totvnsend, John K., 250; George Alfred, 
425. 

Tract Society, American, Dr. Hal lock, 5SS. 

Trafton, Adeline, 512. 

Traraile into Virginia, by William 
Ptr.ilcliey. 26. 

Treasury Office, at Wawhington, its organ- 
ization by Hamilton, 68. 



Trenton Falls, description, by Willis, 186. 

Treseott, W. 11., 549. 

Tribune, New York, its origin, 409 ; opinion 

of Bennett, 408; of Read, .%39. 
Trowbridye, John T., 403 ; Miss Catherine, 

520. 
Troy Female Academy, 305. 
Trumbull, John, 77 ; Henry Clay, 501. 
Tucker, St. George, 92 ; Beverly, 239 ; George, 

240; Mrs. Mary E., 353. 
Tucherman, Joseph, 138; Henry T., 389; 

opinion of llalleck, 140 ; of Street, 34S. 
Turell, Mrs. Jane, 53 ; Rev. Ebenezer, 53. 
TurubuU, Robert, 600. 
Turntr, William W., 482; W. M., 489; 

Samuel II., 295. 
Tusculuni, Dr. Witherspoon's country seat 

near Princeton, 70. 
TuthiU, Mrs. Louisa C, 310. 
Twelve Decisive Dattles of the War, 

by W. Swintou, 473. 
Two I'ort raits, by Miss Mcintosh, 174. 
Two Years Before the Mast, by R. II. 

Dana, 477. 
Tyler, Royall, 116 ; Moses Coit, 390 ; Samuel, 

252; Bennett, 282. 
Tyng, S. H., and Dudley A., 612. 
Typee, by Herman Melville, 486. 
Tyson, Job R., 244. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, 493. 

Unitarian Psalms and Hymns, 386. 

Ihiited NetJierlatids, History of, by Mot- 
ley, o2'>. 

United States, History of, by Bancroft, 
526; by Iliidreth, 525. 

University of Virginia, founded, 64. 

Universalist Psalms and Hymns, 386. 

Unrest, by Edith May, 104. 

Upham, Thomas C, 279 ; Charles C, 279. 

Upshtir, Miss Mary J. S., 505. 

Utica, No pent up, &c. See Sewall, 94. 

Vagabonds, by J. T. Trowbridge, 404. 
VandenJioff, George, 509. 
F<'f»/f//j.an., Sir William, hisGolden Fleece, 27. 
Vaux, Roberts, 124. 

Venetian Life, by W. D. Ilowells, 401. 
Verplanck, Gulian Crommelin, 229. 
Very, Jones, 195. 
Vrthahf, Henry, 2.52. 
Victor, Mrs. Mctta Victor. 511. 
Views Afoot, by Bayard Tuylor. 456. 
Vincrnt, Fnincis. 531 ; J. H., G0.3. 
Virginia, the first American books written 
there, 26. 



640 



INDEX, 



Virginia Comedians, by J. Esten Cooke, 

482. 
Virginia Springs, 179. 
Voice, Philosophy of, by James Rush, 256. 
Voices of Freedom, by Whittier, 330. 

Wagoner of the Alleghanies, by Read, 

339. 
WainwrigJit, Jonathan M., 293. 
Waitltig by the Gate, by Bryant, 334. 
Walden, or Life in the Woods, by Thoreau, 

477. 
Walher, James B., 275. 
Wallace, Horace Binney, 228; Williani C, 

194. 
Wallis^ Severn T., 467. 
Wain, Robert, 105. 
Walsh, Robert, 112. 
Walworth, Mansfield Tracy, 537. 
Wants of MaUf by John Quincy Adams, 

236. 
Ward, Nathaniel, 30; Thomas, 157; James 

W., 157 ; F. De W., 276. 
Warden, David Bailie, 245. 
Ware, Henry, 138 ; Henry and William, 311. 
Warfield, Mrs. Catherine A., 506. 
Warren, Mrs. Mercy, 92 ; Susan and Anna, 

495 ; Israel P., 587. 
Washington Potts, Mrs., by Miss Leslie, 

197. 
Washington., George, 62 ; character of, by 

Jefferson, 64. 
Watching, a poem by Mrs. Judson, 206. 
Waterhury, Jared R., 272. 
Watson, Elkanah, 129 ; John F., 220 ; Henry 

C, 418 ; James M., 568. 
Watterston, George, 116, 
Wayland, Francis, 296. 
Wayside Inn, Tales of, by Longfellow, 325. 
Way to do Good, by Cotton Mather, its 

effect on Franklin, 58. 
Weariness, by Longfellow, 328. 
Webb, James Watson, 545 ; Cbai'les H., "John 

I'aul," 442. 
Webber, Charles W., 192. 
Webster, Daniel, 234; opinion of Calhoun, 

238 ; of Horace Binney Wallace, 228 ; of 

Alexander Hamilton, 68 ; Pelatiah, 86 ; 

Noah, 122 ; Rev. Richard, 219. ► 
Webster's Dictionary, aid from Allen, 219. 
Weems, Rev. Mason L., 128. 
Weiss, John, 595. 
Welby, Amelia, 165. 
Weld, H. Hastings, 461. 
Welde, Thomas, his connection with the 

Bay Psalm-Book, 29. 
WeUs, David A., 555; William H., 656. 



West, Stephen, 136. 

Westminster Meview, opinion of Howells, 

402. 
Weston, Mrs. Mary C, 524. 
Westover manuscripts, by Col, William 

Byrd, 46. 
Wetmore, Prosper M., 189, 
WJiarton, Francis, 611, 
What :Answer, by Anna Dickinson, 500. 
What I know of Fanning, by Horace 

Greeley, 409. 
WJiat SJie Hr ought- Me, by Henry Lynden 

Flash, 352. 
Wheatley, Phillis, 91. 
Wheaton, Henry, 240, 
IVIiedon, Daniel D., 604, 
Wheeler, Daniel, 139 ; John H., 530. 
WJielpley, Samuel, 135. 
Whitaker, Alexander, Good Newes, 26 ; Mrs, 

Mary S., 501 ; Mrs. Frances M., " Widow 

Bedott," 209. 
Wliipple, Edwin Perry, 389; opinion of 

Everett, 234; of Agassiz, 550. 
Whisky Insurrection, in Western Penn- 
sylvania, 74. 
White, Wiljiam, Bishop of Pennsylvania, 88 ; 

Richard Grant, 391 ; Andrew D., 534 ; E. E., 

559. 
WJiiteJiead, William A., 537. 
Ifliitman, Bernard, 139 ; Mrs. Sarah H., 209 ; 

Mason, 290; Walt, 376. 
Whitinore, William H., 540. 
Whitney, William Dwight, 560; William, 

242; Mrs. A. D. T., 512. 
Whittemore, Thomas, 300. 
Wliittier, John G., 329 ; his opinion of 

Holmes, 396. 
Wliittlesey, Miss Sarah J. C, 505. 
'^Wlio reads an American book? " 96, 
Wicker sham, James Pyle, 471. 
Wide Wide World, by Susan Warner, 495. 
Widow Bedott, The, by Miss Berry, 209. 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 41, 
Wikoff, Henry, 104. 
Wilcox, Rev. Carlos, 108, 
Wilde, Richard Henry, 191. 
Wiley, Calvin H., 469. 
Wilkes, Charles, 315. 
Will, Edwards on the, 54, 
Willard, Samuel, 42, 220; Joseph, 220 ; Sid- 
ney, 220 ; Weston D., 529 ; Mrs. Emma 0., 

304; her opinion of Lucretia Davidson, 110, 
William and Mary College, founded, 

46. 
Williams, John, 46; Roger, 36; Samuel W,, 

251 ; Edwin, 321 ; William R., 599; Bishop, 

609. 



INDEX 



641 



Willis, N. P., 185; opinion of Morris, 188; 
of Fanny Forrester, 208; William, 221. 

WUliston, Seth, 136. 

WillitSf reminiscences of Dr. Bethune, 283. 

Willson, Marcius, 567. 

WilsoHf ("Christopher North '"), his opinion 
of Audubon, 120; Alexiuider, 117 ; James 
P., 135; John G., 274; John Leigiitun, 
274; William D., 295; Robert A., 316; 
John, 320; Alexander C, 423; Mrs. Au- 
gusta E., 505; Henry, 527 ; James G., 528. 

Winchester, Elhanan, 91 ; Samuel G., 272. 

Winehell, Alexander, 551. 

Wind and Current Charts, by Com. 
Maury, 552. 

Wines, Enoch C, 464. 

Winslow, Edward, 36; Myron, 281; Hub- 
bard, 281. 

Winter Sunbeams, by S. S. Cox, 464. 

Winthrop, John, 34, 85; Robert C, 221; 
Theodore, 476. 

Wirt, William, 113. 

Wise, Henry A., 48^ ; Daniel, 603. 

Wister, Mrs. Annis L., 524. 

'ni.thinffton, Leonard, 135. 

Witchcraft, work on, by Cotton Mather, 45. 

Witherspoan, John, D. D., President of 
Princeton, G9 ; influence on Madison, 65; 
connection with Hamilton, 67. 

Wood, "\\'illiam, author of New England's 
Prospect, 28; George, 116; James, 271. 

Woods, Leonard, 136; father of Mi-s. Baker, 
"Madeline Leslie," 513; Leonard, Jr., 
279. 

Woodhridge, William C, 131. 

Woodman Spare that Tree, by Morris, 
188. 

Woodwarth, Samuel, 104; Francis C, 196, 

54* 2 



Woolman, John, 50. 

Woolsej/, Theodore D., 281. 

Wolcott, Roger, 46. 

Wollaston, Mount, the Free Doings there by 

Martin and his Fellows, 34. 
Woman's Record, by Mrs. Hale, 309. 
Women of the Revolution, by Mrs. Ellet, 

541. 
Wonders of the Invisible Word, by 

Cotton Mather, 45. 
Wo7'cester, Joseph E., 252 ; Noah and Sam- 
uel, 137 ; Samuel M., 312. 
Worcester's l>ir.tionary , aid from W. 

Allen, 219. 
Word Rook of Sjyelling, by W. Swinton, 

473. 
World, New York, 411. 
Wright, Mi-s. Julia McNair, 510; Fanny, 

807 ; Robert W., .",74. 
Wylie, Samuel B., 134. 
Wynne, Mrs. Emma I\Ioflett, 507. 
Wyoming, history of, by Charles Miner, 

130; by W. L. Stone, 214. 

Yamoyde^i, a poem by Sands and Eastburn, 

108. 
Teonians, John W., 270; Edward D., 270. 
Yesterdays with Authors, by J. T. Fields, 

346. 
Yoting Ctiristian, by Jacob Abbott, 492. 
Young, Edward, 371. 
Young Iiudy's JPriend, by Mrs. Farrar, 

307. 
Youth's Rook of Natural Theology, by 

Gallaudet, 319. 

ZopJiiel, a poem, by Mrs. Brooks ("Maria 
del Occidente. "). 

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